by Atri Kundu
A couple of scrambled footsteps sounded behind him in the rooftop. He didn’t bother to turn for he knew well why they had come. “Dr. Faulkner, you should come down. The evacuation is complete, everyone else has moved to the bunkers.”
“They are here, aren’t they?”
“Yes sir.”
“How long?”
“Five minutes.” Just the way he had predicted, decades ago.
He let out a short sigh and gulped back the fear that was churning inside his throat. It was time to press the blue button. The message was already written in bold. He pressed it. ‘Time is a very strange thing,’ he remembered his father telling him ages ago.
“You gotta go son. I’m staying right here,” he said.
“But sir—”
“Go!” Faulkner squeezed out a short yell through his tightly clasped teeth. “This little building of USRA is my home. I’m dying with it.” He could say no more. USRA. United Space Research Agency—the name meant so much to him.
He heard those footsteps retreating. They did hope to survive, he smiled. Hope—clinging on to the last drops of hope, that’s what made humans human. He looked at the small watch kept on the ground, a small but powerful device. A device that gave him glimpses of the future. He invented it when he was just twenty-one but it had one problem, it always paused at one certain date. 27th November 3567. That’s today.
Back then, he tried everything to repair this flaw but he couldn’t. Thinking of it now, he realized, the flaw was never in the device. What future would it show if there wasn’t any?
His peripheral vision caught something, he swiveled to his right. That’s the end of the rope. They’re here. He gritted. It wouldn’t be too hard; he thought he had prepared himself for this since he built that time clock, some forty years ago. Preparing for the end.
But now, staring at the death in the horizon—he wasn’t prepared. No one ever is.
He waited; it wouldn’t take them more than a minute to reach him. He stared with a void gaze, his eyes didn’t blink. Houses, stores, hospitals—all fell before him. And then the UNO’s building crumbled into dust, then the other half of it. A few hundred meters between them, maybe only sixty-seven meters now.
He was in the range.
No one kills me, other than myself. He smiled, and pressed his thumb on the switch.
He blinked. Goodbye, Earth. The remote dropped from his grasp, hit the ground and shattered.
Amidst all the other shrieks and blasts that escaped from the Earth, one certain explosion at a certain USRA HQ stood out.
And then it was darkness, forever.
Darkness never fades until someone forces light through it…
When the Devil is reincarnated, will you run or fight back?
From the author of Present in Love, comes a dark tale of power, hatred and vengeance on the eve of this Halloween.
Elise Harper, age nineteen and a sincere student of applied micro-biology and biotechnology, hardly believed in the tales of ghosts and curses. But when she took her brother Josh and his friends for a trick or treat session to the most Haunted place of their town, her world turned topsy-turvy. She hardly knew the fate that would follow them until that night and until she saw her. After a series of disappearing, she must learn to be a hero.
When a secret buried for decades is excavated accidentally, innocent blood are sure to be spilt. A forgotten beast, dormant for ages will rise to seek the power that can change the destiny of human civilizations. It will come out in the open, hungry and lurking for new preys throwing the world into a state of unspeakable terror.
>>> "Darkness never fades unless someone forces light through it ," Elise believed.
Will her belief be shattered? Or will Elise find a way to save her brother and the humanity? And what will it take to defeat the Devil himself?
>>> Blood. Nightmares. Destruction and mysteries.
A dark spirit was awaiting its revenge for decades. But what does it really seek? Blood of humans or the Devil’s end?
Scroll up and grab a copy of the first installment in The Horror Nights Saga Today.
Scenes from A Blank Page
The shower water touched her naked skin, freezing her down to her bones. Elise shuddered and stepped back. That bloody geyser was making crazy sound, so it was better put off and this left her with no other option. She started humming Ellie Goulding’s Beating Heart to bear with the cold. Her voice shimmered and the tune came out weird. She laughed and within minutes, she was enjoying the bath.
Almost after fifteen minutes she turned off the shower. Water dripped from her hair into her eyes, blinding them. She reached out for the towel. Her half-frozen fingers fumbled and the towel landed into a bucket filled with water. “Holy…!” she muttered.
She was shivering and now was without a towel. With a bow she snatched away the towel which was half-soaked from the bucket and as she lifted her head, she glanced at the mirror. It reflected two figures.
Elise swirled around immediately, wrapping the cold and wet towel around her. No one except her was there. She checked the door, it was locked from inside. An illusion? It must be. She smiled, the cold was having its plays on her mind.
Then again, the image she saw on the mirror flashed in her mind. A woman was standing beside her—white gown and snow-white hairs and a face so pale that it seemed inhuman. Now that the image was gone, she could feel it carved inside her mind even though she saw it only for a blink. How could she just imagine all these? A chill ran down her spines, suddenly making her realize that she was standing in a cold towel on a chilly November morning.
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Present in Love
When Love seeks forgiveness, sacrifice is the best present you can give!
A heart-melting story of union and sharing presents; separation, longing and the desire to share more presents.
A short love story of the present generation, filled with sweet and ever-lasting presents to fill the void in your heart.
Jeremy Woodshaw, a billionaire from Texas, fell in love with a waitress in a small inn, Emily. Beyond the world of money and luxury, his love for Emily will craft him into a person he never was. But then one night, the sweet love story shattered into a thousand pieces of death, despair and separation.
The man alienated from the world seeks to revive his old love but as the search comes to an end, one last present will change their lives.
˃˃˃ "Love is like an ever-lasting present which only teaches us to smile," he believed.
Will his belief be shattered? Will the two lovers ever re-unite?
˃˃˃ When love seeks forgiveness, sacrifice is the best present to give.
His love will return to give him one last chance to correct his deeds, but not without a cost.
Scroll up and grab a copy of the first installment in the Eternal Romance Saga Today.
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Scenes from Present in Love
The glass windows almost acted as mirrors. I checked myself. All okay.
My full-sleeve snow-white shirt and black tuxedo trousers made the perfect pair — perfect for a waitress. Usually I leave my hair open, flaunting its waist-length. Today, I gathered all of them and tied them into a tight pony. The man back at parlor did his best to tighten my hair into little rolls, to reduce its length. But those curls should be invisible at night from a distance, especially from the opposite foot-path.
My face hasn’t aged much although I’m twenty-two now and my reflection in those windows refreshed my school memories. ‘Huh! It’s time now.’ I left my breath which I’d been holding for—an obvious indication of the emotion inside my heart. It was pumping faster than usual. Sweat drops formed on either side of my chin, I rubbed them off.
Sliding my fingers in my shirt pocket, I took out the picture. Emily Woodshaw. Indeed we had similarities. Even if
it was not much but still the resemblance in figure and posture was far too much and just enough to be mistaken.
The memories of my first school play flashed inside my head. I did awfully bad that night on stage. Too nervous, just like now. Today my part is different, though, most similar to a ramp walk. No dialogues to remember. So no chance of stammering, which was another symptom of my nervousness.
I stared at the manager. He smiled back at me, followed by few other staffs who awaited my show. He nodded his head up and down, raised his thumb wishing me luck.
I stepped towards the glass door, pulled it open. A blast of chill wind hit my face. It was around eight at night—a busy time at Northwood Square. Cars and bikes flew past me. As usual Jeremy stood on the opposite foot-path. He didn’t see me yet as the fast moving cars obstructed his vision. The signal turned green only seconds ago. It’s the perfect opportunity for me. I stepped out of the hotel compound.
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