Chapter 2: Confirm He Is Mad
A soldier kicked Avinash and said, "Move quickly, you scum!"
Avinash fell to the ground. A boy extended his hand to help him up. As Avinash looked at him, he uttered three words, "You're insane! You almost got us killed!"
The boy stared at Avinash's face, completely stunned.
"I'm the one who saved you, wasn't I? Ugh, kindness is wasted these days!"
Suddenly, a soldier's loud voice came from behind, "Useless! Stop chatting and move forward silently!"
An American Bald boy walked up to the boy and said, "My name is Johnny."
The boy replied, "My name is Aniket. Okay, tell me, why doesn't your name end with 'Sins'?"
Hearing this, Johnny glared at him and said, "He's right... confirm, you are insane."
Everyone else started staring at Aniket as well.
Feeling a bit uneasy, Aniket said, "Guys, don't look at me like that."
He then went over to a Chinese girl and said, "Hindi-Chinese, brother-brother! Come on, say something… why are you so quiet?"
The girl didn't respond, and as Aniket approached her, she quietly moved away.
No matter whom Aniket approached, they all silently distanced themselves from him.
15 minutes earlier
The soldiers had pinned everyone down.
Some people were still confused and awestruck by their surroundings, but now fear had taken over. The soldiers' actions made it clear their intentions were far from good.
Everyone had been forcibly summoned to a strange world. But this world was nothing like they had imagined.
Avinash struggled to lift his head toward the front, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't see the face.
Standing before them was a girl who was glaring at everyone. Her gaze was like she was looking at insects.
Suddenly, the girl shouted, "What do you want? Why are you doing this to us? What did we ever do to you? Please let me go!"
Following her lead, the others began repeating the same questions.
But just then, a soldier standing behind her plunged a spear into her hand. Her screams echoed around them.
"Ahhh!"
The girl cried out in agony. Suddenly, she released a terrifying pressure from within.
Her eyes began glowing red.
Avinash felt as though someone was choking him. He couldn't breathe.
In his mind, he thought, "Her eyes… they're glowing red. Could she be a vamp…?"
In just a few moments, all the pressure disappeared. But an eerie silence fell over the area.
The people who were shouting earlier had gone completely quiet.
The girl standing ahead laughed and said, "Ah! Everyone's silent now! Let me introduce myself first. My name is Princess Isabella.
And as for all of you… you're all going to die. If not today, then tomorrow, your deaths are certain.
Heroes! If you beg for mercy, maybe I'll consider sparing you."
Her words carried an eerie laughter.
Avinash thought to himself, "Nonsense! They didn't summon us here just to sacrifice us. No matter what, they're not letting us leave this place. This girl just wants to see us helpless and broken."
The rest of the people weren't so foolish; they understood what was going on. An eerie silence had spread across the place.
Princess Isabella was about to say something when a boy, panicking, blurted out, "I… I beg you! Please let me go! For God's sake, spare me! Please!"
Avinash thought to himself, "This idiot doesn't get it. She just wants to see us helpless."
As Avinash looked at the boy, his eyes widened in disbelief. A single thought echoed in his mind:
"This moron is going to get us all killed!"
The others also turned to look at him, but none of them could find the words to respond.
Isabella glared at him and asked, "Why are you holding up the middle fingers of both your hands?"
Aniket, pretending to be frightened, said, "This is how we request someone in my culture. If I rub my nose while doing it, will you let me go? I promise, I won't tell anyone about what happened here."
In his mind, he thought, "Witch, there's no way I'm bowing down to you!"
James, whose leg was already injured by a spear, imitated Aniket, raising his middle finger and groaning in pain, "I'm begging you too… please!"
Although the two of them looked scared, their real thoughts were entirely different.
Isabella laughed maniacally.
"Haaaaa! Haaaaa! Watching just two of you do it isn't entertaining enough!"
She increased the pressure again.
It felt like all the oxygen in the area had vanished. Everyone struggled to breathe, gasping heavily or trying to.
Isabella yelled, "I said, do it quickly!"
Out of fear, some people raised their middle fingers, and others followed, reluctantly but with no other choice.
The scene was almost comical. Nearly 100 people stood there, both middle fingers raised in the air.
Sweat trickled down everyone's faces.
Avinash thought, "If this girl finds out the truth, we're done for. And this Aniket… he's seriously mental."
But no one noticed the dangerous smile on Aniket's face. Only Avinash caught it.
Aniket was about to say something, but Avinash quickly covered his mouth.
"Keep your mouth shut!" Avinash hissed.
Aniket, irritated, whispered, "Hey! Hey! Let me say something!"
But Avinash held his mouth tightly, muffling him. All that came out was a muffled, "Hmmmhmm!"
The rest of the group silently breathed a sigh of relief.
Isabella's expression didn't change much. She signaled to the soldiers, and they began leading everyone away.
As she left, Isabella gritted her teeth in anger and said,
"You will all pay for this. I'll make sure your lives become worse than hell itself!"
Present Time
The soldiers were throwing everyone into separate dungeons.
As Avinash had feared, this place was even more horrifying than he imagined. Black walls surrounded them, and the darkness seemed suffocating.
A soldier shoved Avinash into a cell with sturdy iron bars and locked it shut.
After some time, all the soldiers left the area.
The silence was broken by a girl's voice.
"Did any of you see that thing?"
Avinash was confused. He was about to respond when a familiar voice interrupted—it was Aniket.
"Are you talking about that pool of blood we passed on the way here? At first, I thought it was just colored water. But when I saw an eyeball floating in it, I was pretty sure it was blood."
The girl noticed that the pool of blood was flowing directly toward the room where everyone had been brought earlier.
She said, "And the soldiers' eyes… they looked like there was no life in them."
Aniket, sounding serious, said, "Forget all that. It seems we're in deep trouble. Did you see her face when all of you copied me and showed her the middle finger? She looked furious. That means we're not the only ones who have been summoned to this world."
Hearing this, everyone's heartbeat raced. Even Avinash felt a chill of fear.
Aniket, with a sarcastic tone, added, "If it weren't for someone acting like an idiot, I could've gathered more information."
Suddenly, a nervous voice interrupted, "But she…."
Aniket cut them off and said, "You've seen people with strange obsessions, right? She's just one of them. Where I come from, in Haryana, we call this a keeda—a bug in the brain."
Avinash thought, "Oh, so he's from Haryana. I thought he was just a fool, but there's clearly more going on here. Still, how did this situation get worse because of him? And where did he get this courage?..wait He is making excuses I actually thought he was pretty smart."
Then, a random meme flashed through Avinash's mind: "Man with two little balls of steel."
He quickly shook the thought away, almost as if slapping it out of his head.
Even with all his strength, Avinash couldn't look directly at Isabella's face earlier. But how had Aniket managed to pull it off?
"Forget it," he told himself. "No point stressing over this now."
Inwardly, Avinash wondered, "Who is that girl, really? Forget it, I just want to get out of here, go home, and play video games. I wish this was all just a bad dream!"
Suddenly, a blue screen appeared in front of him:
Loading...
Not enough energy.
Loading...
Failed.
Failed again...
System shutdown.
Avinash was startled, but within two seconds, the screen vanished.
He muttered to himself, "Am I hallucinating now? I think my brain's going to short-circuit. Honestly, this fantasy world isn't what I imagined it to be. My life is officially doomed."