Story: The Razing Of Vishnarus: Chapter One

The Razing Of Vishnarus: Chapter One: Bodies and Screams. 

Cryo-Room Delta - Conceptual Image

...

Rama awakes as his body topples towards the soaked floor. Natural instincts are all that stop him from falling limp, as he catches himself with his right forearm. Thick enveloping fluid pours from his mouth as he coughs and gags. He is lying at the base of his cyro-pod, which had at some point, been knocked forty degrees off its standing position. Another cracked pod lies atop his, pressed tightly against his pod's control panel. Dazed, Rama coughs out the remaining of the fluid from his lungs. He is disoriented, and there is a loud, high-pitched frequency resonating in his inner ear. After allowing the noise to slowly vanish into oblivion, he stands up slowly. Holding his head, he shakes away his daze, and gazes around. What he sees is the distorted remnants of Cryo-Room Delta. The overhead lights flicker on and off, sending a hypnotic and confusing wave of light upon the ruined chamber. The smell of blood fills the air heavily. A faint sploshing is audible. Rows of pods line either side of the long, narrow room. Each one had been torn open, leaving cryo-fluid drenching the floor. Some pods had been torn from their very station, allowing the cables to spark and flicker, adding to the dance of hypnotic light. Only a few lay erect while most others had been ripped, smashed, or pounded apart, not only from the outside, but from the inside as well. Rama stares at this sight, awestruck and horrified. 

"What has happened?" is all Rama is barely able to say. 

Rama slowly walks from his pod's wreckage. He notices the pod that has fallen atop his had smashed into the release panel.

"Of all things that could have happened...ironic I wasn't killed," he thinks to himself.

 He continues to comb over the remains of C-R Delta, and falls to his knees as he catches sight of another inhabitant. Slumped over, half fallen from its pod lies a dismembered body. A pool of blood lays inches from the stooped over face. Flesh and bits of meat lay in the pool below it. No arms are seen, but the axillary area's bones and tissue are exposed. The flesh was torn away from its back, exposing the lungs and spine. No human hand could have done such a horrid thing. A faint sploshing is audible. Shocked at the sights of such cruelty and pain, Rama gags and vomits onto the floor. He rises again after a short time and wipes away tears and bile residue. 

"This is terrible. I must find the meaning for such demonic actions!" he says aloud. He speaks a short farewell mantra for the body's spirit. 

He begins wading through the stench-filled room, towards the entrance. All the while the hypnotic overhead lights flicker, lighting his way. He comes across several other dismembered bodies, and winces as he looks upon them. He speaks brief farewells to them respectively as he wades past. A faint sploshing is audible. As he reaches the entrance to C-R Delta, there is a steel locker to the left of the steel door. The locker's grated door had been smashed, allowing him to tear open the 'should be locked' cache. Within it he finds a torch: a heavy military grade flashlight, ironically, designed for non-combat situations regarding maintenance with the cryo-pods. He withdraws the torch and tests it. Flawless light pours from it, shining a brilliant white aura onto whatever it touches. Satisfied with the torch and its usefulness, Rama reaches for the door's controls, but nothing happens. Again, he presses the door's release but only a loud buzz rings through the room. Frustrated, Rama hits the door with the end of the torch, making it flicker on, then back off. The sploshing sound stops. 

Rama sighs and bangs his head on the cold steel door.

"Maybe I was meant to perish here after all." he says.

After a moment, Rama realizes the eerie silence of the room. A soft noise, much like something wading through water, reverberates through the long room. Rama, eyes wide, stands paralyzed with his forehead still resting upon the cold steel of the door. Slowly he turns his head to peer behind himself from the corner of his right eye.

Standing hunched over at the far end of the room is a creature. Long black hair runs from its head down to its knees. Two arms fall limp around its thin body. Its face is covered in shadow, but Rama can see its deep red eyes piercing through the darkness of the room. Blood drips from the creature's long nails and curved teeth. 

"Raksha," Rama thinks to himself.

The creature smiles and in a high, distorted voice, speaks. 
"Oooooh, looks like we forgots one, haven't we? Thiss one wont escape either, no."
"No. Kill this one nice and sllloww." 

A third arm becomes visible on the creature's back as it bends down to its hands and knees. Rama turns to face the horror directly. As he does its head rotates unnaturally, giving vision to a smiling mouth with curved, blood-soaked teeth. Screaming, the creature swiftly crawls towards Rama. Rama prepares himself. The creature jumps into the air, as to strike Rama from above. Rama sidesteps at the last moment with detailed precision to the left. With his arm, he grabs the creature's hair at it's skull, and smashes it into the steel door's control panel. The panel sparks and the door opens halfway. The creature is dazed, but as Rama rolls under the door to escape the room, it lunges for him. The door slams back down upon the creature's torso. Rama now stands in pitch dark, in a large hallway leading away from C-R Delta. Turning on his torch, he looks back at the door. The creature's upper torso and one of its arms are split from its main body. 

Wheezing with its own blood clogging its throat it speaks again. "We are only one offf a legion come to ssslaughter your kind. A plague. You shall be eaten alive." 

The creature's eyes watch Rama with delight as he walks over to it, and swiftly smashes its head into the floor with his heel. 

"If such a terrible thing has come, then worse is yet to follow. I must find help!" Rama says aloud. 

He turns and swiftly starts running down the dark corridor of the ship's main hallway. So massive and dark is the path that even his brilliant torch has trouble peering through the dark. With only his thoughts leading him, he races to find aid in the security wing of the ship. 

After a moment a long scream echos throughout the hallway.

A human scream.

...

Author's Note:

This is the first part of many of my multi-genre Ramayana story. I found a lot of inspiration for this short series from things like Dead Space and Event Horizon as well as the fantasy version of the Ramayana by Ashok Banker. I want to allow this to be a 3 or 4 part series that will allow me to dive into a lot of detail within the story. One thousand words max per part is a difficult but doable length to keep it to. If I could, I would fill my stories with as much detail as possible. For instance I have yet to describe in detail the deeply dark mood of the C-R Delta, or even the clothes Rama is sporting! Part two will dive into another short confrontation, as well as weapon and armor collection. The final part will conclude with Rama's epic battle with Ravana. 

Source:

Prince Of Ayodhya

Author: Ashok K. Banker

Published by Orbit (Time Warner Books UK), June 2005. Great Britain. Print. University of Oklahoma Libraries.