Manish Murthy

I was still down on the ground, with my eyes sunken down on my knees. I looked at the black van going away, turning left and then disappearing. My eyes were red, both with anger and pain. “I-I’m not gonna leave him, no matter what. I swear you, Shekhar, Imma be the one to kill you.”

Suddenly, a womanish figure walked and stood in front of me. Between her legs, I was watching the empty road. I slowly turned my head up and looked at her cold face. She was looking down at me. She frowned and asked, “So, d’ya wanna donate your eyes to The Eye of Suicide?”

“T-The Eye… of Suicide, eh?” I murmured. “You know who Shekhar is?”

“Yes, I know. At last, he’s the one who asked me to come personally and pick you up,” She replied.

I sighed, turned my head down and rubbed my face with my hands. I stood up on my feet and looked towards her. “Who are you?” I asked.

“Kritika Malhotra,” She replied. “And you’re Manish Murthy, right?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Can’t you just look at my face and get to know that I’ve just lost everything in life I used to care about--the perfect admission for your organization?”

“Well, rightly said, but I don’t find men every day crying at one corner that I’d have a good understanding of who is crying why, right?”

I moved my handkerchief towards my face, tilted my head downwards, away from her, and rubbed my face again, covering it whole, partially trying to hide my face too. “So, what I have to do now to officially join your gang?”

“Nothing else. You’re in the team.”

I looked at her again and then confirmed what she said, “Really? I mean, don’t I need to prove myself if I’m worthy of your--”

“No need,” She replied in her same cold damp expression.

“That’s odd.”

“Wanna know why?”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, The Eye of Suicide can become stronger only if there are a large number of people in the organization. But, if we become choosy, so obviously we’ll suffer in numbers. Therefore, we keep it simple. You don’t even need to go out of the building if you want to. Or else, you won’t be permitted to go out, but that’s a completely different matter. But, most of the people are just kept inside and trained. They go out only to kill, and they have to fill a form to go out. Then, they’re given a time-limit and a contract to perform the murder. Sometimes, people kill in groups.”

“Whoa…” I said in awe. “So… I won’t get my hands dirty until I don’t want to, right?”

“Yes, but only after you reach a certain level of trust and get promoted.”

“Anyways,” I said. “… it’s already decided. I-I’m gonna donate my eyes to The Eye of Suicide.”

Kritika smiled and nodded. “Well, those eyes got some fiery anger in them.”

Kartik Khandelwal

I slowly opened my eyes and found myself lying beneath a fan, which was rotating and giving me some good fresh air. I tried getting up when I saw two hands pushing me down at the belly. “Don’t get up, Kartik.” I looked towards my right, and saw Radhika sitting beside my bed. “A-And, I-I’m sorry,” She said shyly. “I just wanted to know if you still had that problem or not.”

I looked at her and replied, “Well, you could have asked me.”

“I-m sorry,” She said again. Both of us fell silent for a few seconds. I looked upward towards the fan and she tilted her head down in guilt. Then, she suddenly said, “So, it’s still there, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I guess I can never get rid of this thing.”

“It was The Eye of Suicide who killed your parents, right?”

I suddenly remembered my mom’s face--she was lying on the ground with her arms covering her face, her hairs scattered, and blood flowing out of her head. A drop of tear came out from my right eye and I replied, “Yeah. That’s why I’m going against them.”

“That’s why you are doing anything it takes to catch the organization. I have to say, you truly are great.”

“Nope, I’m just taking revenge--a revenge for killing my parents, turning my life into shit and taking away everything I used to have.”

“Whatever the reason, the fact that you are, in fact, helping the citizens will never change.”

“It’s gonna end now,” I said. “All of this is gonna end. The announcement is wide and clear, and ‘the time’ has come.”

“‘The time’ to take over the country, right? Do you really think that we can stop them?”

“We have to.”

On the other hand, somewhere far away, The Minister of External Affairs, Mr. Rahul Khanna, was relaxing on his sofa which was kept beside a small table with a telephone. The sofa was a part of a large yellow sofa-set. He took up the telephone’s receiver, and then dialed a certain number. The line was dead. Then, he kept the receiver back. Somehow, the telephone suddenly started ringing and Rahul quickly took it up just after one ring. “Hey, Vikram!” Mr. Rahul said.

“It’s good that you called yourself, Rahul,” Some evil tone replied.

“Why? Did you want to talk to me?”

“Yes, Rahul. Actually…” The man on the other side corrected his position on his chair. Mr. Rahul was clearly able to listen to the sound of the chair crackling. “Actually, I just wanted you to know that we’re now backing our support from your party.”

“What?!” He shockingly asked. “Why?”

“We got some work for ourselves this season.”

“Do you even know why I called you, Vikram?!” He angrily asked. Then, he looked left and right, confirmed no one was around, covered the receiver with his right hand, and then said in a lower voice, “The leader of The Suiciders Defense Team just came for an appointment yesterday. I think he got a hint that we’re not funding his team because we work for you. This can get very serious, man. Don’t back no--” He heard the buzzing sound when someone cuts your phone in between. He angrily thumbs the receiver back and said, “Go to hell!”