Bad dreams happen. Not too often but they do. Every now and then, you wake up in the middle of the night, scared that the monster will eat you, or you will drop from the sky like a rock. Don't deny it. It happens. Hell, shit happens.

I've always been intrigued by things paranormal, be it spirits, hauntings, ghost houses, voices...whatever. They're perfectly normal and real in my mind. For it's true that there's stranger things in real life than in fiction. And for that very reason, I've never been scared or spooked by stuff like these. Midnight visits to cemeteries, ghost stories, even movies, I'm interested in them all, and hence, not too jumpy about them.

Last night, I was fast asleep, from an exhausting day of running to and from a friend's place. At around 2.15 am, I stirred. Something didn't feel right. But I was too drowsy to even bother to open my eyes. At that point being half asleep(y'know, the stage of lucid dreaming, the in-between place between reality and the dreamworld where you find Never-never land) I was barely aware that I was awake. Suddenly I heard two very distinct, short noises that sounded very much like "WHOOO WHOOO". I thought(or imagined) something move from the living room into my room and out the window through me...yes, through me. At the very same instant, a mild shiver-cum-shock went through my body, the kind you feel when you touch both ends of a live battery to your tongue...a mild tingling sensation. I tried to open my mouth to say "Who's there" but for a split second I felt I couldn't even open my mouth. When I finally could, I was halfway through my sentence. It freaked me out. For the first time, I felt spooked. Even scared a bit. I lay in bed, eyes shut, praying, for God knows what. There was a cold chill in the air, though it never struck me as odd then. Anyway, I never did get back to sleep that night. The feeling had jolted the sleep right out of me. Adding to it, all lights out in the house, and the dense foliage outside my first floor bedroom window illuminated only by a single tubelight lit on the ground floor made for a really really hallucinatory feel to the night.

I shifted rooms for the night.

Maybe it was nothing, just a bad dream that woke me up and I imagined it all to be real. Or maybe it was truly something paranormal that passed through my room. I don't know. All I know is that for the very first time in my life, something spooked me. I've had bad dreams before, but nothing has ever felt quite like this time. I wonder whether it really was a dream after all, and if not, what was it?

Is it me or are the trains getting more and more crowded by the day? For the past one month I've taken to travelling by train to and from work, mainly because the time taken to go from Chembur to Churchgate by road is approximately the same amount of time I take to drive down to Pune. Why you ask? Simple, our dear authorities at the Municipal Corporation have happily decided to commence "infrastructural developments" right before the rain Gods start their own infra-dev. Anyway, back to point, the trains...Have you ever seen a tin full of sardines?
How many people are there in Mumbai anyway? Judging by the way trains are packed, half of the city must be empty by noon since everyone's gone to work. And the stench, Oh So Lovely! For once in your lifetime try sniffing the armpits of fifty different persons at one go. God only knows how dogs survive, sniffing each others' butts just to say hello(and they don't even wash after a potty break!) Remember the tin of sardines up there? Add a few rotten ones and I rest my case.

Talking about trains, I left late from work today. Took the last train home and what an amazing ride it was. The wide empty roads of South Mumbai at night coupled with the cool weather from the pre-monsoon showers and an extra large plate of bhurji pav (scrambled eggs with bread loaves for the unfortunate ones who haven't experienced this culinary delight) made for an amazing night journey. And you get all sorts of weird people travelling, with you. One of them definitely has to be the quintessential drunkard, teetering on the edge of tripping over his own pants and stinking of desi daaru -

Drunk Guy: bhaisaahab, kidhar ki gaadi hai?
Me : Arre bhai, Mumbai ki hi hai.(Killer PJ ne?)
DG(even worse) : Thoda daaru hai kya?
Me : Khatam ho gaya.
Hearing this, Drunk Guy then starts abusing the hell out of me while I stand and laugh shamelessly at him.
DG : Tum c*#@%& hai...tum daru kyon nahi rakha mere liye? Tumko sharam nahi hai? Akele nai peene ka!
By now, every single person in the compartment is in splits!
He suddenly remembers there are others in the compartment too, so he turns to every one of them and asks for "daaru" Not finding any after a long exchange of questions and abuses, he finally sits down and passes out scratching his crotch.

I dream a dream of a land of twilight,
Of magic and of wonder.
A land where fairies light the skies,
And the dwarves dwell down under.
It's the land where pixies dance and sing
Their pale skin aglow,
Laughter, music and merry giggles,
on and on they go.

Come dance to the music oh little one!
In a soft lilt they call,
I look at them, longing to join
In the most magical game of all.
Round and round the trees they dance,
Their little feet ablur.
And as the rhythm starts to pick up,
The forest seems to stir.
The leaves go swish and the branches creak,
Magic is in the air.
The wind starts blowing faster and faster,
Whistling in my ear.
And now the little magical beings are moving so fast,
They can barely be seen,
All I can see now is a circle of light
with a brilliant blue sheen.
Through this ring of magic and spells,
As gently as can be,
An orb of light appeared amongst them,
Now there were two, no! Three!
And I looked on in surprise and wonder,
The orbs began to change.
Hands, feet, little pointed ears, oh my!
Now this was very strange!
Suddenly my eyes went wide
As i realized what I see,
Is but the most magical of all magics in this world,
'twas the birth of a pixie!
And when you place your ear to a tree's heart,
And your arms around it's trunk,
You too can hear the pixies chant,
All together as one.

The spirit of the forest,
she gives us shelter and food ,
And the moonlit skies, so vast and wide,
Give us strength and fortitude.
We welcome one, we welcome all,
To our ritual of enchantment and light,
to celebrate the coming of one of our own,
Behold, this auspicious night.
For once in every one hundred years
A precious child is born,
It is a joyous occassion for all of us,
Yet some look forlorn.
Because in magic we are born,
And to magic we must go.
As one old pixie goes into the light,
From that light a child must grow.

Night.

I look at my wristwatch.

Eleven.

The moon beckons with its silver hand. The thing inside me, I still do not know what it is, but it fights. It fights my very soul to emerge, to wrench itself from the very body that it dwells, so that it can reach out to the moon, to the darkness of the night. I cannot fight it for long. It’s too strong. I can feel myself fading away, my consciousness giving way to the primal mind that is slowly enveloping my own.

Eleven-thirty.

Where am I? My hands are smeared with blood. I do not remember the past half an hour. I seem to be in a barn of sorts. Animals lay dead around me, their guts strewn and spattered all over the barnyard floor in a river of blood that seems to flow freely from them. Dread creeps up my spine and my eyes grow wide. It is happening again, and I can do nothing to stop it. That animal, that…that thing inside of me. It did all this. I did it. But I am no killer. No. It doesn’t make sense. How can I possibly do such a thing? My hands aren’t strong enough to rip animals apart. And yet, I feel no pain in my hands. I do not feel pain at all. All my senses have numbed. All my emotions gone. I feel no remorse, no pain, nor do I feel sick. I can feel something throbbing in my breast. It seems to be eating, feasting on my life-energy. I feel drained. Faint. Darkness throws it’s blanket over me. I wish I could wake from this dream once and for…….

Twelve.

The sheer intensity of the pain searing through my body wakes me from my short slumber. It is unbearable. I can feel it in every inch of my body. My hair stands on its end. I feel my spine crack and I throw my head back in a silent scream. The pain is unbearable. I can feel a thousand knives cutting into each part of my body, slowly, pressing into my skin, rupturing each vein, twisting around inside me, churning my guts. My heart pumps irregularly. My body convulses forcing me to vomit. I barely see a mixture of my dinner and blood spattering the floor before I fall face first into it. Writhing on the floor, I try to cover my face with my hands wishing the pain to go away. My hands. I cannot not see my hands. Rather I cannot see what I know as my hands. The soft tapering fingers have gone. I can only see grey hair, all over arm, my palm, my fingers. All over my body. My fingers are longer, thicker. I can feel my nails harden, breaking and gripping the skin and flesh around it. Blood pours out of my ruptured veins and down my body. Loud cracks overwhelm my eardrums and with each crack I feel my bones rearranging themselves. Growing. Dislocating. Joining back. Muscles grow around it, pushing away the scraps of flesh left from my human form. A sharp tug from between my legs followed by a strong push on my buttocks off the ground forces me to turn over and lie flat on my stomach, thrashing on the floor. I feel only a sharp prick running through my deformed body before darkness envelopes me.

I open my eyes. The pain has gone. My vision clearer, better than it has ever been. I sit up, clenching and unclenching my fists, my claws clicking against each other. I feel muscles rippling through my form, and swish my tail. I feel no surprise at my changed form. Only satisfaction. And power. Power that I can never know in that feeble human form that I possess. I can smell fresh meat and blood all around me. I know I did it, and it feels right. This is how it should be with the world at my feet and me, the supreme predator. I look around and skywards. I can see no color. The world around me is black and white with the moon; the glorious moon the whitest and brightest of all, shining upon me. I arch my head back and send out a long and powerful howl, a welcome to the moon and a challenge to all those who dare tread in my path tonight. I can hear deer in the forest running away and human babes crying for their mothers. Ha! No mother can save their precious babe from my claws if I so wish to hunt them. But I have no such wish. I feel hunger of a different sort. A hunger for fresh meat. The mountainside is always full of game and I smell a fresh kill. With long loping strides and speeds to match a galloping horse, I bound towards the mountain forest on all fours, ready for game, and whatever this glorious night may bring forth.

Run.

My heart pumps blood through my veins. I see the trees blur as I go faster and faster. The wind whistles in my ears. My ears prickle as I hear the sound of pumping hooves against the forest ground. The sheer urge, the insatiable thirst for blood drives me on through the thick undergrowth. A flitting shadow among the bushes ahead tells me my prey is near. I can hear its heartbeat thumping in my head. Fast and irregular. It is nervous. Afraid. It knows that it has not the slightest chance to survive this chase, let alone this night. I hear a whimper and drops of a mixture of blood and sweat splatter across my lips. I think it has grazed its hide against a thorny bush. The rich sweet-salty flavor of sweat and blood makes my head spin, the urge to feed pressing against my very being, pushing me to finish the chase. I resist.

Too many trees. My fleet-footed prey has a natural advantage here and it knows that. Its survival instincts are too strong. I know it will never leave the protection of the forest cover. I jump upwards, the sheer power my legs pushing against the ground kicking up a whirlwind of leaves and dust. My arms grab onto a thick branch and swing me to the next one.

My predatory instinct has taken over my body. It knows where it has to go and what it has to do. I need to think of nothing but the exhilaration of the chase. The chase it what makes it worth the kill. My heightened senses picking up the smallest of details in my surroundings, the smell of fear from my prey and its knowledge of sure death. Without a chase, the kill means nothing to me. My legs and arms work in tandem, swinging me from branch to branch, the flexible branches of the evergreen trees giving just enough spring to propel me to the next one. I look up midair as I pass an empty patch of forest cover. The moon, the glorious moon, the sun of my night, shining down on me from its bed of stars. Tonight she appears brighter than usual to me, sharing my sense of power. As I grab onto the next branch and swing myself upwards, I see my prey right below me. It has slowed down. Confused. It seems to think I have given up the chase. It can’t sense me, stalking it from above. It relaxes a bit, kicking the ground few times, as if in pride at having outrun me.

It’s the perfect opportunity. The silence of the night engulfing us, I move ahead, ready for the kill. Silently I drop down, right in front of my prey. She’s a young doe and a beautiful one too. The moonlight shines down through the trees giving her lean figure a soft white halo. I stop, just for a moment to admire the beauty of the very creature that shall satiate my hunger in a few minutes. She is startled. Her ears flit in my direction and her eyes grow wide. Fear keeps her rooted to her spot. She knows she cannot run, and she cannot hide. In this forest, I am the supreme predator and she is but a mere morsel that shall appease me for the briefest of periods. I leap forward and she utters a single low, a desperate cry for help, as my fingers clamp down on her throat, crushing her windpipe. With a dull thump her body falls down on the soft forest ground. It’s done.

I crouch beside her, running my fingers over her soft hide. I feel the warmth of the blood still running through her veins, as her heart slowly ceases to beat. It will be a short while before the blood runs cold and rigomotor mortis kicks in. Enough time to have my fill of course. I Bend down and clamp my jaws down on her neck for that is where the skin is the softest. I would have, of course, preferred the heart, if it weren’t for the ribs. Too difficult to get through and not quite worth the effort. As my canines puncture her neck, the warmth of her blood drenches my parched throat with sweet satiation. The sensation is orgasmic. I immerse myself in it completely as I have my fill. The odor of fresh meat wafts through the forest air, tempting, inviting other predators to investigate. I should finish off quickly, for even with all the strength I possess, it would take more than one of my kind to take on a mountain lion or a pack of wolves. I dig my hand into the doe’s breast, my fingernails tearing through the hide as if it were putty. As I pull her hide apart, exposing the ribs, fresh blood spills over my hands, and I stop for a moment to lick it off. I can see the heart and lungs, now completely deflated. I tear out chunks of meat, tender and fresh, and bite some off. Meat may not suit my palate, but it is a necessity, for even with an immortal soul, my body is still that of a mere mortal. I hear howls in the distance. The wolves are coming. It may not be advisable for me to stick around anymore. I tear out two more chunks of meat from the body, and leap up to a branch, leaving trails of blood dripping from the meat as the wolves come bounding through the trees, no doubt attracted by the scent of my kill.

My hunger satiated and thirst quenched, I walk through the forest towards my rocky abode at the foot of the hills. There I shall sleep, sleep through the day, awaiting nightfall, so that I can emerge again, the supreme predator. Unbiased. Soulless.