THE RED IN THE RAIN

Deep red puddles collected in the dirt lanes of Masaki, thick as clotting blood. It has rained that day, though it never should have. The leaves hung heavy, each one slowly releasing a crimson drop red that struck the ground with a wet plop. No smoke rose from the cooking fires. No children chased chickens between the huts. Only the wind moved, rustling the dripping leaves and making the red water ripple.

Every year the red rain returned. No one knew why. Some called it a curse. Others believed it was pure blood. For the red water was not the worst part—it was what the rain brought with it.

“Who will it take this time?” a lady whispered inside the nearest cottage.

Her husband’s hand shot out and clamped over her mouth. His palm was cold and damp. “Don’t speak it,” he hissed, eyes wide. “It might hear you.”

Even the jungle beside them had gone silent, as if waiting to see whose blood would mix with the rain this year. Someone from Masaki would be stolen and taken away with this malicious rain. Today, was not the day it should have come. The rain of death had arrived too soon. The dread of death knocked on every door. Each person believed that if it wasn’t their neighbour, then it would be them.

Across the lane, sat the head of the village, he looked the village with hollow eyes, his knuckles pale around his walking stick, waiting for the dread he feared had already begun.

In this season of horror, unknown footsteps were heard.

Doors creaked open and faces peered out.

And there she was—a woman walking aimlessly door to door. She took two steps forward, then suddenly changed direction, making people wonder if she had forgotten where she was going. She looked dull, with mud streaking her face and arms. Her eyes open but empty, like windows with no one behind. Each time the wind moved the red fabric she wore, it made her appeared like a moving flower, that moved solely in the rhythm of wind and not because it possessed a will.

The village head stepped forward, his walking stick trembling in his grip.

“Young sister,” he spoke, voice hoarse, “are you lost? Do you need shelter?”

The woman stopped. She looked down at her muddy feet.

“I-I don’t know,” she whispered. “I have forgotten everything.”

A nervous murmur rippled through the villagers; one watched the other with uncertainty. The usual electricity was far from Masaki’s reach, let alone a police station. But letting an unknown woman stay in the village while the red rain fell was much more made everyone looked pale.

After low debates among the village committee, the head announced, “She would stay in the old ruins. Sira lives there. He can watch over her until we discover who she is.”

The ruins lay on the very edge of the Masaki, closer to the jungle than the village. Covered with vines, the place stood as abandoned and forgotten— just like Sira, who lives there.

As the woman was led toward the ruins, another crimson drop fell from the darkening sky and landed on the back of her hand. She stared at it for a moment… then kept walking without wiping it away.

By the time they reached the ruins, the sun had already slipped behind the trees. Shadows stretched long on the broken walls.

News had reached to Sira, of the arrival of an uncalled guest.

A single knock echoed through silence.

The old wooden door creaked open. Inside the room was nearly pitch black except the weak flicker of the lantern. Sira stood in the doorway, his face half hidden in the shadow.

Sira welcomed her with a silent nod and stepped aside, letting her enter. He moved quietly, showing her the narrow passages and small rooms of the ruined structure. Strangely, the man looked even more empty than the woman who claimed to have forgotten everything.

Without a word, he handed her a warm, folded towel. His eyes briefly lingered on her mud-streaked face and damp red dress before he looked away again.

The women did not sit. Instead, she began to wander slowly through the ruins, her footsteps echoing softly. The place was badly damaged— cracked walls, collapsed sections and broken tiles piled up in corners. However, with effort it had tried to make liveable. In what served as the main room, there was cold, sticky liquid that has collected, the lady felt it under her foot. She looks above to find a broken roof that has been fixed with sheets of tin, covering the damaged parts and sealing it with efforts

“The rain has entered here,” she spoke in low voice, almost to herself.

Sira stood few steps behind her, awkward and stiff. He stared at the puddle, before answering in a quiet flat voice.

“Yes, I repaired the roof recently, but I think the rain can still enter from there.”

They sat facing each other under the weak glow of the lantern. The flame flickered between them, casting down shadows on the cracked walls.

“You are Sira, right?” the lady spoke, breaking the long chain of silence. Sira looked at her and passed down a gentle nod.

“What do you do?” she continued.

He averted his gaze from the flickering light before answering. “I make clay pots and sometimes when it is needed, I chop the wood from the jungle,” He spoke in a gentle tone. “What about you?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I have forgotten what I used to do…and where I came from.”

Sira nodded slowly. “I heard that. Maybe this is why you are here. The villagers had a habit of ditching abandoned people at this place,” he spoke, while his eyes looked away.

He glanced at the lady, and found her twitched eyebrows.

“Oh no! I didn’t mean to call you the abandoned one.” His eyes grew wider in shock, as soon as the he registered what he has just said.

The lady laughed at his reaction passing her a little ‘relax’ signal.

“Why do you think, you are the abandoned one here?” she pressed the question. He gave her a strange look.

“Who else did you find at ruined places, apart from the dumped people” He stated almost in a murmur.

“Is it solely because of this place? Or is there something else—something that makes you think you are left behind?” She asked, while slowly releasing her tensed muscles and getting comfort under a stranger’s roof. He paused. But there was something—something moving in his eyes, like a storm, something igniting like the flicker of the lantern, that he thought would easily be concealed through silence. He curled his toes in some thought. The light flickered once more, before the storm finally released in his eyes.

II.

Grandma gazed at me, her eyes moistening a little in some thought. While she hid it behind her a sweet smile, she touched my face with her rough and warm hands, as if it had been the last day she would be able to do so. Growing up, I realized what that look in her eyes was. The settlement, moved something deep in my heart. I hadn’t consciously thought of it but the same feeling reached in my chest, and poured out in forms of tears. I haven’t told her about it. But I knew she had already known it. She was growing old.

Every day she walked to the market with clay pots balanced on her head, her small back bent under the weight. My heart ached seeing her work so hard for me. But she never let even exhaustion appear on her face, no matter how hard it turns out to be, she will always pass it with a smile.

One night, I held her hands and promised, “I would put all my efforts to give you a life with comfort. I will work hard and your hands will no longer harden up from making pots, your back won’t bent down with the weight of them. We won’t have to live in these ruins anymore; I promise that the day will come soon.” She smiled and stroked my hair, the same gentle smile she carried even when there was barely enough rice for both of us.

Then some men intruded in our place, and her smile dropped instantly. Four of them stepped inside our house with hyena grins. Their eyes moved over our few belongings like vultures.

“Kaki,” one said, “we’ve already told you, why do you keep holding onto that land when we are willing to give you a good sum in exchange? The company is willing to pay more.”

Grandma stood up straighter, with rage in her eyes.

“Over my dead body,” she said, her voice fierce. “That land is our motherland, it has given us all the shelter and food, we can never cheat with it.”

Their smiles vanished. Their gazes slid from her to me, dirty and threatening. I looked down in shame, too scared to speak.

“Think carefully, old woman,” the leader warned. “Rebelling at your age won’t end well.”

They left with promises of more visits.

That night, fear settled deep in my chest –not for myself, but for her. She is the only person I had. An inch of harm that may come towards her scares me to death. The land was all we had left. The villagers had already been bought. Companies wanted to build here, and our small piece of earth stood in their way.

The next morning, the weather felt, heavy and unsettling. Grandma had already left to sell her clay pots; she prepared the last night. I was on the roof, fixing the tin sheets tightly, when a cold gust of wind tore one from my hands and sent it flying down the lane.

I climbed down and chased after it. As I reached the middle of the path near the village, I heard them — the same men who often visited our house. They were gathered behind the trees, laughing maliciously.

One of them said loudly, “That old lady really thought she could stop us. I love this kind of spirit, in the elderly people.” He laughed like a devil. “Finally, we’ve removed her from our path. The boy isn’t even eighteen yet. It’ll only take a few cups of tea to get him out of the land ownership.”

My heart stopped.

Barefoot I ran as fast as I could towards the market where Grandma would be. They all had been lying. I kept repeating in my mind. They always lie.

But when I reached her usual spot, she was lying on the ground.

Her hands were twisted at unnatural angles, her eyes closed. Her face, once so full of life, was now pale and empty. She didn’t look up. She didn’t smile at me with that familiar spark in her eyes. She simply lay there, cold and still.

I rushed forward and tried to lift her, but my body failed me. She felt heavier than ever, even though she had always been so small. Her bones were twisted, her breath gone. The hands that once caressed my face no longer moved. They didn’t wipe away the tears pouring from my eyes.

I collapsed beside her on the ground.

That was when the sky began to bleed.

Scarlet drops fell slowly at first, mixing with my tears. It was the first time it had ever rained with blood.

When I finally laid her down on the very land she had fought so hard to protect, I felt something inside me die as well.

A year passed down, and it rained one more time with sky bleeding the same way. There was blood on the floor, none could differentiate it with the water that pour from the earth. It had been a blood of the man. One of those who laughed like hyena. I have killed him. His blood solely oozes out because of me. More rains would come and more people would be taken away.

By me.

III.

The flickering of the lantern had stopped, it had stilled. His gaze was blank, as if he had pushed all his pain so far down that nothing could surface anymore. But she saw through it. Her own eyes glistened with shared sorrow. Slowly, she raised her hand and gently touched his cheek, forcing him to meet her gaze.

“You are no murderer,” she whispered softly.

At those words, the dam inside Sira finally broke. His eyes flooded with everything he had tried so hard to bury. A single tear slipped down his cheek. He closed his eyes tightly, but it was too late. The woman’s eyes reflected the same deep pain. In that moment, the two strangers understood each other completely, as if their suffering had merged into one.

The night grew heavier. The lantern dimmed. The two lay on the cold floor. The women could see, see right through him, his eyes moistening with a different pain, but he buried it with a smile. A painful smile— an expression that hid more than it revealed.

Once Sira’s breathing became deep and steady, the woman silently rose to her feet and slipped into the next room.

A faint vibration came from her pocket. She pulled out a phone.

A voice on the other end spoke immediately. “Have you figured it out yet? Is it the boy from the ruins? Is he the one murdering the villagers?”

The woman froze.

“No, Sir,” she replied firmly. “We were wrong. There is no killer.”

There was a pause on the line.

“How can that be, Meera?” the senior commissioner asked, surprised. “You were so sure earlier. Now you’re denying it completely?”

Meera’s voice remained steady, though her hand trembled slightly.

“I’m sorry, Sir. I made a mistake in my judgement… and in my investigation.”

“I am sorry Sir; I have been wrong in my judgement and my investigation. Masaki had no murderer; it has all been rain that takes people with it.”

She ended the call and stood in silence for a long moment.

*

The next morning, something had shifted inside Meera. The purpose that had brought her here — to catch a killer — had completely changed in a single night.

She could not find Sira anywhere. The lantern still burned in the same place where they had slept. A quiet guilt gnawed at her for hiding the truth from him.

She wrote a short letter and placed it under the lantern:

I had come here in search of a murderer. A person, who killed horribly with the rain. And when I thought I was just so close, my illusion broke. There had been no killer. Perhaps, the wrath had been an absolute call from the earth, from the sky, and from every atom present. For the earth remembers what we tend to forget.

—Meera

She stepped outside, hoping to catch sight of him. A passing villager said he hadn’t seen Sira. Worried now, Meera returned inside and called his name. No answer.

The letter under the lantern looked different.

The folds were not hers.

With trembling hands, she opened it. There were now two letters. She unfolded the second one.

To the one who brought light into a place where it had long been forbidden —

I knew why you came the moment I saw the flash from your pocket and read your name. I chose to show you my truth anyway. How could I lie to eyes that wept for my pain?

You have found what you came for.

If I could, I would surrender with you. But how do you arrest someone who is already dead?

I have finished the murderer you were looking for.

— Sira

Meera’s legs gave way. She collapsed to the floor.

Only then did she notice — the floor was wet. Not with rainwater. With blood.

Beside her lay Sira’s body, pale and still. The red rain had again taken somebody with it.