The Saint of Death

In the heart of Bangalore, Alok, a 26-year-old data engineer, found himself mesmerised by the glow of his laptop screen one night. Fuelled by cheap coffee and a deep sense of unease, he ventured into the depths of the internet, hoping to find some comfort. However, what he stumbled upon would haunt him deeply.

The image that caught his eye was chilling: a skeletal figure draped in darkness, adorned with vibrant flowers, and clutching a scythe with an eerie grace. Santa Muerte, the Saint of Death, seemed to stare right into his soul from the screen. Intrigued and fearful, Alok delved further into her mysterious world.

As he read on, a morbid fascination gripped him. Santa Muerte, revered in certain cultures for her protective powers, offered a glimmer of hope in Alok’s troubled life. His job felt like a dead-end, his relationship strained, and he felt lost in the vastness of existence.

Driven by desperation, Alok immersed himself in rituals to appease Santa Muerte. On dark nights, he visited a lonely crossroads, offering candles and murmuring prayers in a trembling voice. He even resorted to carving symbols into his skin, offering his own blood as sacrifice.

One eerie night, Alok found himself amidst a dense fog that enveloped him, suffocating and disorienting. He stumbled forward, his senses assaulted by the acrid stench of blood and decay that hung heavy in the air. Suddenly, emerging from the swirling mist, was the silhouette of a bloodhound, a monstrous beast with eyes ablaze in a sickly crimson glow.

Its jaws dripped with thick, viscous blood, each drop hitting the ground with a sickening splat. Alok’s heart raced as the bloodhound loomed closer, its gaze fixated on him with an intensity that sent a chill down his spine.

In a desperate bid to escape, Alok jolted awake, his body drenched in a cold sweat. But as he tried to make sense of his surroundings, he realised with sinking dread that the nightmare was far from over.

In the dark corner of his room, right next to the door, he saw them, the same glowing eyes that had haunted his dreams. They burned with a malevolent light, unblinking and unwavering, as if daring him to try and escape.

Alok’s breath caught in his throat as he realised he was trapped, imprisoned within the confines of his own room with the sinister presence looming over him. Every instinct screamed at him to flee, to run as far away as possible from the glowing eyes that watched his every move.

But no matter how hard he tried, the eyes remained rooted in place, casting a suffocating shadow over his every thought and movement. And as the minutes stretched into eternity, Alok knew with a bone-deep certainty that he was not alone. That something dark and malevolent had taken root in the very heart of his existence, and that escape was nothing more than a fleeting illusion in the face of true terror.

The night wore on and Alok stifled his screams so as to not wake his family for help. Soon the break of dawn accompanied by the rays of the rising sun came to his relief.

A few days went by. Despite fleeting moments of happiness at work and a renewed bond with his partner, Shreyasi, Alok’s life descended into darkness.

The hardships that befell Alok’s family seemed to cascade like a series of cruel dominos, each blow more devastating than the last. It began with his father, a hardworking man who toiled tirelessly at a construction site in the hopes of providing a better future for his family. But fate had other plans in store.

Alok’s father endured a string of horrifying accidents at his workplace, each one leaving him bloodied and broken. Whether it was one of the workers falling from a precarious height or another facing a crushing blow from a heavy piece of machinery, the injuries piled up, leaving him battered and bruised emotionally.

Despite his resilience, the toll of these accidents was impossible to ignore. The project he had poured his sweat and blood into was eventually shut down, leaving him without a job and a sense of purpose. The loss weighed heavily on him, a bitter reminder of the fragility of life and the cruel whims of fate.

As if that weren’t enough, Alok’s mother suffered from a mysterious illness that baffled even the most seasoned doctors. She endured endless rounds of tests and consultations, each one yielding more questions than answers. Her sickness took a massive toll on the family, casting a shadow of fear and uncertainty over their once peaceful home.

Meanwhile, Alok’s lover, Shreyasi, faced her own share of hardships. Financial troubles plagued her at every turn, leaving her struggling to make ends meet. The stress of mounting debts and unpaid bills was like a boulder on her shoulders, threatening to crush her under their oppressive weight.

Despite their best efforts to weather the storm together, Alok’s family found themselves teetering on the edge of despair. The once bright future they had envisioned seemed to slip further and further from their grasp, leaving them adrift in a sea of uncertainty and desolation. And as they struggled to find solace amidst the chaos, they clung to each other with a desperate hope that somehow, someway, they would find a way to overcome the trials that threatened to tear them apart.

Alok’s nightmares grew more intense, filled with skeletal figures and chilling laughter. Reality itself seemed to twist and bend around him. Day after day, Alok found himself trapped in a relentless cycle of terror and helplessness, his mind plagued by the haunting spectre of gruesome images that refused to loosen their grip. As he sat at his desk, trying in vain to focus on his work, the nightmarish visions flooded his thoughts, twisting and contorting his reality into a grotesque tapestry of horror. He could feel the weight of each gruesome scene bearing down on him like a suffocating blanket, leaving him gasping for breath in a world devoid of solace or respite.

But as the days turned into weeks, Alok’s struggle to maintain his composure began to take its toll on his performance at work. His once impeccable work ethic was overshadowed by the relentless onslaught of nightmares, leaving him unable to concentrate on even the simplest of tasks. Despite his best efforts to push through the darkness that threatened to consume him, his slipping performance did not go unnoticed by his superiors. He received warnings, reprimands, and ultimatums, each one a stark reminder of the precariousness of his employment. And as the threat of termination loomed ever closer, Alok found himself at the end of the rope, his once promising career crumbling beneath the weight of his own inner turmoil.

As Alok’s worst fears were realized, he received the devastating news from the HR department that his employment had been terminated. The words fell like a heavy blow, crushing his spirit as he struggled to comprehend the sudden loss of his livelihood. With a heavy heart and a sense of resignation, he gathered his belongings, each step towards the exit weighed down by the burden of uncertainty and vulnerability.

But as Alok made his way out of the office, his phone rang with a shrill urgency, cutting through the suffocating silence of his shattered world. With trembling hands, he answered the call, his heart sinking as he heard the news that his brother Agrim had been admitted to the hospital following a near-fatal accident. The revelation hit him like a physical blow, leaving him reeling as he struggled to come to terms with the enormity of the situation.

As Alok grappled with the shock of Agrim’s accident, another harsh reality loomed ominously on the horizon, the crippling financial burden of his brother’s medical bills. With no steady income to rely on and mounting debts already straining their resources, Alok knew that the road ahead would be fraught with uncertainty and hardship. The specter of financial ruin loomed large, casting a shadow of fear and disillusionment over his already tumultuous existence, as he braced himself for the daunting challenges that lay ahead.

Haunted by shadows and whispers, Alok’s grip on reality weakened. The once vibrant city now felt oppressive, each step a journey into madness. Sleep offered no respite, only a terrifying descent into a world of horror.

As he stood at the crossroads once more, Alok felt the weight of wretchedness bearing down on him. But just as he teetered on the edge, the piercing wail of a police siren pulled him back from the brink.

Upon his return from the mental health institute, Alok found himself thrust back into a fractured existence, where the remnants of his former life lay scattered like broken shards of glass. The once vibrant hues of his world had faded into a monochrome landscape of dejection and isolation.

His parents, once the pillars of strength in his life, now appeared as mere shadows of their former selves. Their faces, etched with lines of worry and exhaustion, they seemed to age before his very eyes, their once lively spirits dimmed by the weight of his own struggles. Their smiles, once warm and comforting, now carried a tinge of sadness, a silent testament to the pain they had endured in his absence.

As Alok ventured out into the world beyond his doorstep, he found himself met with the prying eyes and whispered rumours of his nosy neighbours. Their gossip spread like wildfire, painting him as a pariah, a symbol of the madness that lurked within their midst. Each passing glance felt like a dagger to his already wounded pride, a reminder of the stigma that now clung to his name like a dark cloud.

But perhaps the most crushing blow of all was the absence of Shreyasi from his life. Her once radiant presence had been the anchor that kept him grounded amidst the chaos of his own mind. Her laughter, like a melody that danced through the corridors of his heart, now echoed only in the empty spaces of his memory. The void she left behind was cavernous, a gaping wound that festered with each passing day, serving as a constant reminder of his own inadequacies and failures.

As Alok stood at the familiar crossroads, his mind swimming with fear and uncertainty, a sudden gust of wind sent a shiver down his spine. In that moment, he felt a sharp prick on his finger, a tiny drop of crimson staining his skin, a petrifying reminder of the darkness that lurked just beyond the edge of perception.

But as he looked up, his heart pounding with dread, he saw something that froze him in place. The shrine, once adorned with offerings to Santa Muerte, now stood empty, the candles extinguished and the flowers withered, a stark omen of the horrors yet to come.

And in the silence that followed, Alok heard a whispered promise on the wind, a sinister echo of his deepest fears. The nightmare, it seemed, was far from over. And as he stood alone in the darkness, the truth dawned on him with chilling clarity: Santa Muerte’s embrace was not one of salvation, but of eternal torment.