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Walking amidst the lush greenery beside the LHC, you notice the peculiar absence of stars in the sky. Your footsteps across the somewhat damp ground is all the noise you have to keep you company. Strange. You realise that even the crickets and toads seem to be taking the day off. You can see the first year hostels in the distance. You notice that all of them have their lights on but not one has a soul in sight. As you slowly take in the gravity of the situation, you notice a shimmer to your right from the corner of your eye. Reflex kicks in and you turn around instantly to face… nothing. The road is as empty as it has been since you got here. A loud, sharp crack makes you do a 180 and you notice that the front of the milk parlor has what seems like claw marks etched into the front. You do not know if it’s fear or terror that drives you, but you decide to sprint to your hostel room as fast as you can. As you cross the basketball court you hear increasingly close growls that seem to originate from the very depths of hell itself. Your feet ache, yet pure adrenaline drags you across the muddy walkways.
Almost halfway through the sunshade, a particularly nasty submerged rock takes you by surprise and you trip and fall face first to the ground. You’re on the verge of blacking out again, but you muster up whatever energy you have left to stay conscious. The growls get closer and closer by the second and just as you think it’s all over, they stop. And then, you hear it;
THUMP!
The sunshade shakes with the amount of force it is handling.
THUMP!
Another step almost brings down the entire structure on top of your helpless body. You watch as the beast jumps off the shade and lands some 5 feet away from you. With fur black as night, eyes an eclectic mixture of red and yellow, and a frame so massive that it would put even the biggest bulls you’ve seen on campus to shame, it fixes its gaze on you. As you stare deep into its eyes, you seem to enter into a trance, the yellow and red giving way to cold darkness. You have no way to differentiate between the unearthly scream you let out and the growl of the beast as it opens its jaw to showcase a set of pearl white teeth with needle sharp edges. The yellow is the last thing you see as the darkness envelopes you, consuming every inch of your body…
Silence.
The beast is gone. You recognise your hostel room. You stare in disbelief at your bed. You wonder how you are still alive. You wonder if anything in the world makes sense anymore. And then you see him. Sitting cross legged on your roommate’s bed. Dressed in striped attire, with frills and tinker bells adorning his waist, the two-faced man smiles in a mixture of beaming benevolence and sinister shades. “I am Janus, the Roman God of Duality”, he booms with a voice of stifled laughter and droning menace, “and I offer you a choice, two doorways, if you will. He straightens himself and beckons you closer. You oblige. “The path of resurrection brings back the dead and living into our world”, he declares, holding out his left hand which is glowing warm red. “The path of creation bestows the power of rebirth in your hands”, he says as he holds out his right, around which blue sparks were snaking their way across. “What shall you choose?”, he asks with his voice teeming with wonder and disgust. “What if I don’t want to choose anything?”, you ask with your voice quivering under the stress. He gets up and takes a step towards you and whispers, “You die.”
