The Chronicles of Shamballa

Chapter LXXIV: New tales

Carey stared at Ram Babu, terrified out of his mind, until he felt a sudden jerk. Ram was shaking his shoulders trying to wake him up from his trance.

“Wake Up Sahib! What has happened to you!” he said.

“Wh- What? You- are you all right?” Carey asked.

“I am all right but what happened to you? You were sleeping with eyes wide open Sahib,” Ram replied.

“No- no, I saw- saw that you- ugh! What the hell’s going on? Where are we? Why aren’t we cold?” remarked Carey.

“You saw something? Maybe this is what the Yetis were warning us about,” Ram replied.

“Yeah- no, we are stuck here- ah! It’s One in the morning, there’s darkness everywhere and we are clearly lost, built the fire Ram, something’s clearly not right,” said Carey and moved closer to the fire.

Half an hour passed and nothing happened. The wind howled all around and Carey sat there beside the fire watching, anticipating an attack of some sort. Ram has dozed off again, that poor old man had a simple mind and character. But Carey’s brain was firing at full speed, running at different directions. He grew anxious and kept wondering why he was seeing dead bodies in the middle of nowhere. A few minutes later, he convinced himself that these were just constructs of his mind. As his eyes grew heavy and the fire burned down, he felt a strange presence lurking behind him. He turned to look and found a dark figure standing on the edge of the hill. Carey was shocked but he didn’t let fear grip his senses. He stood up boldly and clenched his fists, knowing that whatever it was, he was fully capable of fending it off.

“Who’s there? What do you want?” said Carey standing beside the fire- the dying flames illuminating the right part of his figure.

The dark entity said nothing but Carey observed that it looked like a man, covered from head to toe in thick black cloth. He took a step forward and asked again but still no reply.

“I’m warning you, state your intent or leave here, I don’t want to fight,” said Carey trying hard to recall his powers.

“Oh, foolish foreigner, you think you can fight your way out of here?” replied the dark entity in a deep husky voice.

Carey knew that he had heard the voice somewhere but he couldn’t recall who it was.

“You think you can have everything you want? Success, money, love?” the entity continued his monologue whilst standing still like a statue, “you’ve made it so far but you will never see Shamballa, not before you answer for your sins,”

“Who are you? How do you know about Shamballa?” asked Carey.

“You bloody foreigners, you come and take whatever you please from our country and do not care for who lives or who dies,” the entity replied.

“Wait- I know you- it’s you- Kali- but- you were dead, back on that hill,” Carey said.

“I am dead you fool but I have unfinished business, I have come for vengeance, it is because of you that I was killed and it is you who took the love of my life away from me,” replied the entity, now taking a step forward towards him.

“What on earth are you talking about? And how do you speak such fluent English- no- no- you can’t be Kali, he’s dead and the dead can’t talk!” Carey said preparing to attack.

The entity didn’t respond for a second and then suddenly it flashed across and grabbed Carey’s collar.

“Look at me- look at what you’ve done to me! You will have to pay!” said the entity showing its horrific rotten face and growling like a demon.

Carey immediately punched that thing in the face and followed with a flurry of left and right jabs until the figure finally disappeared into the darkness. He had no idea what he witnessed but he was sure that demonic forces were at play and they were trying to intimidate him. He looked around and everything was back to normal, the fire flickered slowly and Ram Babu slept cosily by its warmth, like he didn’t hear a thing. But suddenly, he hears crackling noises on the ground like the earth was tearing itself apart. To his great horror, Carey saw the earth cracking open and mutilated hands appearing through the cracks. There were a dozen pairs of hands- just hands bloody and distorted like they have been freshly cut off from the body, all crawling out from the earth and creeping towards him silently.

“Oh! Sweet Lord, Ram! Ram, wake up, get up now,” he cried out but Ram was sleeping like a baby.

The bloody hands kept piling up from the ground and slowly moving towards him. He immediately took a piece of wood from the fire and tried to shoving them and kicking them away. But the hands kept piling up and he was running out of space, the more he kicked them, the more kept coming, each one, trying to grab his leg. It was an eerie sight, something straight out of a horror novel. And as he kept stepping back, he kept yelling at Ram to wake up, those horrific hands were reaching for the fire and beyond the fire was Ram- sleeping peacefully. Then he felt somebody like somebody was standing behind him but before he could turn around something screamed at him from behind. The scream was so loud and high pitched that he had to drop the firewood and cover his ears and close his eyes. A minute later, he opened his eyes and saw that the hands were gone, everything was again back to normal and standing not five feet away from him was the dark entity claiming to be Kali.

“Die!” it whispered and Carey was immediately being pulled into the ground.

The earth below him turned into quicksand and he could see those dastardly hands pulling him from underneath. He screamed and yelled and tried his best to fight but he could do little to save himself- they were dragging him to Hell itself!