A Fight - Part two

“No response frr….” however the terrorist was interrupted by a shadow at the door, the terrorist moved out. Aaryan was so relieved, his wide open eyes were a bit mitigated at the sight. Countless thoughts ran through Aaryan’s mind; did the government respond, was the danger over, would we all be free and what is this place. “grr jsjdgrr” these words that came from outside though didn’t make much of a sense to Aaryan but he could surely say there was something wrong. Next moment he saw the second terrorist run towards his companions, the room was again unattended. Aaryan didn’t know how to react, he looked around and he could distinctly see horror on the tear-clad faces of other hostages. Was it a chance he had got to save himself thought Aaryan, but he could hardly move his hands. Having already witnessed a death in the very same room, it would have been foolish on his part to try anything. But could he succumb to death not even fighting once for himself. “I can’t give up” said Aaryan to himself, “but I can hardly move myself, there is not a single sharp object around either, damm” thought Aaryan. Aaryan had moved out from his mood of fear-only to frustration and anger. He wanted to do something, he didn’t want to give up but he could do nothing. The terrorists who had left the room just a few seconds back were very quite close enough to detect movements, so it would have alarmed them if Aaryan did something. With all his might Aaryan tried to slack the rope, tied to his hands, but it hardly made any difference. He was still on his knees as before but then he was the only one in the bright light area in front of the camera. “Ah” sighed as though something struck Aayan, he somehow managed to sit in the loop of his tied hands and the fight for his life had begun. The conversation among the terrorists exhibited discontent but Aaryan had a fight to fight, he was on his knees with his posterior over the tied rope and his hands tied to the rope. He pulled his hands towards his body with a tremendous pressure, at the same time he prayed for time, his hands were burning; the friction between the rope and his skin had caused his hands to bleed.

Within a minute a terrorist entered the room, Aaryan was still, on his knees, looked dejected. The terrorist was burning in rage, he turned on the camera and he pointed the gun onto Aaryan’s forehead as he spoke “We told you to free Juja but not to send military, we have spotted your uniformed men outside, you don’t take us seriously so now watch this kid die” As the terrorist spoke his eyes gave a horrifying look. Aaryan was scared but not more than before. The terrorist standing tall in front of knelling Aaryan had held his long rifle in his right hand. The barrel pointed firmly at Aaryan’s forehead, after the terrorist completed his speech over the camera, he supported the gun with his left palm and casually moved his index finger towards the trigger.

A bullet was shot. There were cries that resonated throughout the room, the hostages were petrified. They had then witnessed another gunshot, they felt sorry for Aaryan but more than that they were scared for themselves. But the room was not filled only with the cries of the hostages, there was some hustle going on in the bright light area. Aaryan wasn’t dead. He had managed to untie his hands and legs. He held the barrel of the rifle with his left hand pointing at the ceiling, within a fraction of a second from his knelling position Aaryan leaned back, supported his body with his right hand pushing the ground behind him and he let out a strong kick using his right leg. He had kicked the terrorist hard at his delicate point, the terrorist was surprised and had gone weak. Aaryan pulled the rifle towards him. Aaryan was flat on the floor with the rifle but completely under control and the terrorist collapsed down. Aaryan quickly stood tall and with his hands, that were painted red with blood, swung the rifle with all the strength he had against the terrorist’s helpless head. The terrorist didn’t move, the blow was strong, and Aaryan had taken down the terrorist. Though Aaryan had delayed his death, he didn’t look happy. His burning wrist and the fact that more terrorist were outside made Aaryan uneasy and distressed. The hostages were still crying for Aaryan, but the words “I am alright” soothed them all. Aaryan rushed towards Nilesh to untie him. They soon untied the rest. Obviously the terrorists weren’t dumb to not have realized that something went wrong in the room. But surprisingly no one entered the room. The hostages could hear distant firing.
“What the hell is happening outside!” exclaimed Gary
“Probably the officials saw through this camera what happened in this room, live, and the military has started its action” answered Aaryan.
“Oh my God” cried someone.
“They would kill us before the military got them” complained Gary.
“Ya, you are right. We can expect many terrorist in this room now.” As Aaryan said these words he sounded dejected.
“I think we should all sit quietly and wait”
“Wait for what Gary, wait for the terrorist to finish us all!” shouted Nilesh.
“But what else can we do, we are not military men” yelled Gary
“Nilesh is right, I have killed one terrorist and they would definitely not leave us. It time that we fight for ourselves till the military rescues us”
“Aaryan you have gone mad, none of us have ever fired any weapon, we are not even trained to fight , how can you even think of getting out alive? ” whined Gary.
“But we have no option left. It is do or die” said Aaryan with regret.
“Look this terrorist has a revolver and pistol tugged in plus some ammo” said Abhishek who had been examining the dead terrorist. “I am familiar with the basic mechanism of the working of a gun so maybe we could fire the weapons”

Five minutes had passed since Aaryan had killed the terrorist. Abhishek had given everyone an incompetent but sufficient description of the mechanism of the working of a gun. They all heard approaching footsteps, coming close to the door. By then, Aaryan had read the geography of the room; it was shabby, low roofed, without windows and rectangular (10 by 15’). Abhishek commanded everyone to stick to the rear walls and Aaryan to stand behind the door. Abhishek threw the pistol towards Nilesh and Abhishek stood with the revolver. Abhishek and Nilesh were standing together, pressed against the wall, exactly opposite to Aaryan. The door was closed, all three boys took a ready stance, the door opened and Abhishek and Nilesh each fired four rounds. “Bingo” yelled Nilesh, they had managed to shoot the two terrorists who collapsed at the door. The next moment Aaryan fired his rifle at the two half dead terrorist lying at the door. The young boys had managed to climb two steps towards their release. The body language of the terrorists clearly stated that they were unaware of the scene in the room and the others were busy handling the military attacking them from outside. Aaryan and a few others were familiar with the place. They were in the haunted “Giant fort”.

“Giant Fort” was a deserted place just outside the city. The fort was declared haunted because of the large number of reported unusual incidents. Despite it being declared haunted Aaryan and his friends had been to this place before. They had a good look at the internals then.

“Listen everybody, we are at the Giant Fort. Those of you who don’t know how this place looks, I will give a quick description” started off Aaryan amongst the heavy firing going on between the terrorists and the military. “This is a three storey wrecked fort, it is 100 meters wide and just some 25 meters alongside. When we had come here we had been only till the first floor, but the layout for the other floors mostly would be the same.” Aaryan had a slight peek outside, through the door, and continued “We are very close to the stairs and from what I can make out, right now we are on the third floor. There are two staircases and we are close to the left one and now it is to our immediate right.”
Gary interrupted Aaryan “But if we move out and if some terrorist spots us we would be killed”
Nilesh continued “But Gary, terrorists would anyway kill us all, so we have to move and give them some resistance. I know it isn’t easy but we have to do it.”
“Nilesh is right Gary, We should form two separate teams one for each stairs” said Abhishek.
“Ok then we should do it.” said Aaryan who tried to sound confident but couldn’t hide his fear “We now have three rifles, three pistols and two revolvers, from the looks of it, it doesn’t seem we are short of ammo too. Let’s form two teams, one follow Abhishek and the other follow me. I will take the farther stairs and Abhishek you take this nearer one”.
Weapons were distributed, Aaryan and Nilesh had a rifle and a pistol, Gary grabbed a revolver, Abhishek took a rifle and revolver.

There were 19 alive hostages in the room, some armed, many disarmed but all were scared. They had hardly got some two three minutes to plan their plan of action. They weren’t pro, not even at the level of amateurs but they had no other way, the only thing they could do was to fight, fight for their life. Aaryan opened the door completely and turned left and led the way, Gary, Natasha and seven others followed him. He looked around, the floor was surprising clear, Abhishek, Nilesh and others moved out, turned right and took the stairs immediately. Aaryan moved slowly towards the other end, the passage was very long with many rooms to his left. He asked others to follow him at a distance. He cautiously moved towards the other end. He checked the next room. “Wow, these are our cell phones, bags and wallets” said Gary who had moved in to check the room. Everybody moved inside this room, took their cell phones. Aaryan dialed the police helpline number; they gave him a passkey “Benjamin Franklin”, and asked him to be safe.

Almost everyone thought that staying in the room would be a wiser option, but Aaryan didn’t feel any good about the idea. Also he had to let Abhishek and his team know the passkey. “They shouldn’t be too far, can someone join his team?”
“I can” said a boy’s voice.
“Ok, they should be near the stairs and as we haven’t heard any gunshots coming from their direction it means they are safe” said Aaryan “Ok buddy, be careful and give him the message”
As the young lad stepped out, there were gunshots, Aaryan pulled him back.
“Oh my God, they are here” said Gary in a dejected voice.
“Did you see how many were there?” asked impatient Aaryan.
“No, the shots were from the other end, and I didn’t have a chance to turn back and look” said the lad.
“Ok then, I think, it is time to fight” replied Aaryan and as he spoke one could see a matured young leader in him. Before he could finish, Aaryan crouched, in front of the open door and with a quick movement moved his upper body outside the door with the rifle pointing towards the other end of the passage. Aaryan kept his finger on the trigger, he must have fired some 10 rounds and then he moved back inwards. He had no idea of whether he had shot anyone. He was inside the room again, “now what?” said Gary.
“Don’t know man, let me move out again.” As Aaryan said this other hostages didn’t seem to concord with the idea but Aaryan had to do it. The second time Aaryan wished to be more precise, he looked through the door, and he saw a pillar on the opposite wall. Aaryan thought if he could get there safe, he would have a better chance take down the terrorist but Aaryan knew the terrorist would have always had a better chance over Aaryan.
“Gary, as I move towards that wall you fire indiscriminately towards the other end”
Gary did what Aaryan said without any question, Aaryan didn’t hear any gunshots in reply, so he quickly moved towards the pillar. “BAM” there was a gunshot, the revolver from Gary’s hand was thrown back but Aryan had managed to take cover behind the pillar and aim at the terrorist. Aaryan’s inexperienced hands shot few bullets and Aaryan witnessed an ugly site. He had shot the terrorist in his head which blew off like a watermelon. The terrorist too fired back before he collapsed and one of the bullet grazed Aaryan’s Tshirt. He saw two terrorist lay dead on the floor, he had killed one before in the previous firing. Aaryan directed the young lad to move towards the other stairs to inform Abhishek and others about the passkey.

The passage now seemed clear but was horrifying, they moved room by room towards the other stairs picking up as much ammo and weapons they could on their way. They were almost there, they had reached the stairs, and the room where they had been held up was almost 100 meters away. Aaryan and others were near the stairs.
“I and Gary will move down first, if things are clear I will direct you guys to come down” said Aaryan.
Aaryan and Gary moved down, they were facing the second floor. They could see some part of the second floor passage, a closed door on the opposite wall, and the gunshots were a lot louder than before. Aaryan was at the edge of the stairs and the long passage, which ran 100 meters to his left, of the second floor. As soon as Aaryan stepped his foot on the passage, something landed right next to his foot.
“Grenade!!!, move back ” cried Gary who was far behind Aaryan but Aaryan was shocked, his eyes were wide open, and he was glued to the floor.

to be continued...