The night sky was clear and cloudless. The moon was a thick crescent. Mannat analyzed from its position in the sky the time was two o'clock in the night. There was no wind blowing and it was hot -- not the ideal day for squatting in the bushes to hunt rabbits. Thankfully, they were out in the open fields.

Mannat and Pandit sat in the dirt. Well, Mannat was sitting with his knees folded and hands around them. Pandit lay on the dirt ground in deep sleep. He had asked Mannat to wake him up if something happens. That was two hours ago and nothing had happened. It was lonely to sit there alone, but Mannat wasn’t angry. He was thankful. Pandit could have declined to help him, but he was there beside him against all odds. What more could he ask from a friend?

They were not alone in the fields. Though it was nighttime, the old man had his sons and other farmers erect guide torches around the plot of land. Together, with a huge bonfire burning brightly in the middle, the torches were doing a fine job of keeping the land lit up. Everyone held torches in their hands for protection and as a position marker. They would have looked like wisps in the night if there wasn’t a bonfire burning brightly to scare away the darkness.

The farmers had also dug a wide channel from the pond, and water was endlessly flowing into the field from it. It had been half-day, but the land was yet to fill. The burrows were too deep. The water would endlessly gush into them and could take up to five minutes to fill one.

The old man had miscalculated the time it would take to fill the land. Half a day spent and barely a third of the field was underwater. The reflection of the bonfire and the torches was turning the water into a sea of fire. It was quite a sight to see under a clear star-lit sky.

Unknowingly, a yawn released from Mannat’s mouth, and his eyes closed. Darkness and a warm fuzziness enveloped his mind and he fell asleep. He was not a night owl. He slept soundly, unresponsive to the outside world until someone pushed him awake. He woke up with a start, instantly attentive in a burning world. There were screams everywhere. People were shouting. The whole land was a sea of fire. A suffocating smoke covered his surroundings in a dark veil. Shadows mingled with the smoke lit by the background fire and moved about the rippling water surface like tentacles full of malice.

Mannat could hear a buzzing in his ears, and it was suppressing most of the noises in his surroundings. Suddenly a loud snarl erupted from somewhere –he knew exactly where. It reverberated through his whole body, shaking his skeleton and opening his ear canals.

It was only after the shaking stopped did he notice the time. The smoke wasn’t lit by fire, but by cold sunlight. It was daytime already. It was impossible to figure out the time, but the sun wasn’t up yet. That was the most important thing. He had slept right through the night and missed most of the action. For some reason, his surroundings looked like the end of the world.

Fully awake, his mind returned to reality and he found Pandit shaking him. The boy was drenched in muddy water; his eyes were wide open in hysteria and teeth clanking.

“Why aren’t you waking up!” Pandit yelled in Mannat’s ears and he cringed away from the boy.

“I’m awake,” Mannat shouted back, unable to discern the volume of his voice. He was loud.

There was a yelp of surprise. Pandit caught his arm and saved him from falling back into the mud. “Finally!” Mannat heard as Pandit pulled him to his feet. “Let’s go before it hides again.” The boy said with an orange fire burning in his eyes and stared east.

Mannat asked no questions and fell right behind him. It took him a few strides to catch up with the boy. “What’s happening?”

“It appeared!” Pandit looked over his head and shouted. “Your beast… It is no rabbit. There are no rabbits so big.”

Somehow, Mannat was not surprised. “What does it look like?” He asked. They were still running or trying to get out of the mud. Did it rain while he was sleeping? How did the old man fill the whole land in such a short amount of time? Thankfully, he had come prepared to wear his high-neck leather boots. They made it easier for him to walk in the mud. That is what the field had transformed into a giant muddy swamp. The burrows had already collapsed, so he didn’t have to check his foothold every step.

Pandit's voice interrupted his thoughts. “It’s like a mole, a giant mole with black fur, red eyes, and fangs the size of my hands. It’s about the same size as your torso.”

Black fur, red eyes, giant fangs; Mannat found himself looking back at the sketches he had seen a day ago. A mocking smile bloomed on his face. How could it be the same thing? That book was clearly an old relic. It was impossible for the sketches to become real. It wouldn’t make any sense.

There was a circle of people not far ahead. He could see them, but it was not easy to walk in the mud so it took them a good couple of minutes to get there. The number of people gathered there surprised Mannat. It was a crowd.

“Where did they all come from?” Mannat asked and Pandit shook his head.

“I only know they came to get a barrel of wheat. Do you know anything about it?”

That’s what it was. Someone had spread the rumor and most of the laborers and jobless villagers had gathered there. Most of them had probably helped to get the work done. However, there were too many people.

Mannat worried the old man would have to shell most of his harvest to sate the helpers, most of who were only standing around and watching. The losses were too great for a single rabbit.

A group of people had surrounded the beast. He could see its silhouette moving between the men’s legs as the torchlight held in everyone's hands swell and shrank with the wind.

Yes, the wind was blowing again, but it was not easy to determine whose side it had taken.

Mannat and Pandit pressed through the group of onlookers and squeezed their way to the front line. They stopped a distance from the group of people encircling the rabbit. They stayed close enough to see its movement and hear its angry roars. Mannat’s heart sank the more he heard those inhuman snarls. That thing was definitely not a rabbit!

Then he managed to get a direct glance of it in stasis and he drew a sharp breath.

“Are you okay?” Pandit asked. Mannat looked at him, opened and closed his mouth. He was speechless.

He shook his head and looked away, hoping his friend wouldn’t dig too deep into it. That would mean trouble. Mannat wouldn’t hide it from Pandit that yes, the rabbit indeed shared too many similarities with the sketch for it to be a coincidence. In a way, the sketch was more menacing. He didn’t know how he came to the conclusion that a living breathing creature was less intimidating than its sketch.

That’s what he believed.

Ahead, a group of men encircled the shrieking rabbit. A rope around its hind leg was trapping it to a thick wooden post. The rope was short and it could barely move a few feet around it. The men stood outside its reach. Most of them held torches in their hands, which they shoved at it whenever it tried to lunge at them. It would curl up and snarl at the person before backing up to the post. There was a man with a bow firing arrows at it, but it was spectacularly dodging them. Every few minutes, the rabbit would try to jump over the men, but the rope made sure it wouldn’t make it out of the circle.

There were four or five arrows sticking from the ground, but none had struck the rabbit. No. Mannat noticed broken arrows on the ground and healing wounds on the rabbit’s backs. If he noticed, then so did Pandit.

“Its wounds are healing at a visible rate!” Pandit exclaimed.

No wonder there were the whispers of monsters and demons in the crowd.

The man holding the bow was a former soldier. He might not be a perfect shot but had definitely trained with the weapon and seen many things. Even his hands were shaking. Who knows how bad things would have been if there wasn’t a rope tied around the rabbit's leg and limiting its reach. The former soldier snarled every time his arrow missed, and the men around hissed together with him. It was an amusing sight for sure.

Mannat didn’t know how long they had been at it, but the rabbit was still as energetic as ever. It was truly something.

“Fall goddamn it!”

“What is this thing?”

“Oye, don’t let it escape! Keep it in the circle.”

“God has forsaken us. God has forsaken us.”

There were all kinds of voices mixed among the bystanders. Some were crying and others prayed. Mannat saw the old man standing in the circle of men, holding a torch. He had abandoned his staff for the sake of safety. Mannat didn’t believe the old man could have overpowered the beast anyways. It was energetic as a boar, that could take more damage and didn’t get tired.

“Why aren’t they taking it down?” Pandit mumbled aloud and an onlooker told them.

“No one dares to get close to it. It has already injured three men badly. One of them almost lost his hand. Now they are waiting for it to grow tired or an arrow to kill It. Even wolves aren’t so tough to kill.”

“Looks like we’ll have to wait a bit longer then,” Pandit said.

The man grunted in agreement and faced forward again, ignoring the two.

Suddenly, another arrow struck the rabbit on the back. It curled up from pain and shrieked. The soldier saw the chance and let out a volley of arrows. Since his hands were shaking not all of the arrows stuck target, but four did. Cheers erupted louder with its cries. Mannat felt the energy in surrounding and goosebumps rose up against his arms. Pandit followed the onlookers and cheered the men.

When everyone thought it would die, the rabbit turned its head back and snapped the arrow shafts sticking out of its back with its mouth.

“Why isn’t it dying?” Mannat mumbled aloud.

Pandit answered him. “The arrows were too shallow. It has a tough hide and amazing regenerative capacity. Its wounds quickly seal up when there is nothing obstructing them. Are you sure, the Witch told you to hunt this thing? Didn’t she mean you to be hunted by it?”

Mannat kept silent, though his mind churned out thoughts afterthoughts. He heard a few, considered them a bit before pushing them all aside. He didn’t want to make a judgment on the basis of shallow speculation. He needed more information to find the truth, and inspecting the rabbit was one way to do it. He didn’t need to touch the beast, but he still had to be in close proximity to it.

“Let’s go,” He told Pandit, who instantly reacted by holding his arm and stopping him.

“What are you doing?”

“I need to get closer to the rabbit to ‘inspect’ it.”

Pandit gripped his arm harder as his eyes opened in panic. “You want to touch that thing?”

“I don’t need to touch it,” Mannat said and explained.

Pandit heard him and shook his head in relief. He didn’t release Mannat’s arm though, afraid, the boy would fly into the circle of men and do something foolish. What if there was an accident? He wanted to say a few things but paused when he saw Mannat staring at him with his deep green eyes. Those eyes were confident, interested, eager, but most importantly, they were calm. Pandit had never told his friend how many times he had blindly followed him because of the utter calm he had seen in those eyes. This time again, just like the previous hundred thousand times, he was going to follow him into the fire.

Pandit sighed and released Mannat’s arm.

“Let’s go then. The faster you do your thing, the faster we can escape.” He said taking lead. No way would he let the frail boy walk in front of him.

Mannat smiled and quietly fell behind Pandit.