A FEW MINUTES AGO

The hysterical yelling of the lady running towards the bomber startled me slightly as she ran past me. The bomber panicked as she ran towards him. A response which showed that he was not a hardened criminal. Not someone who's trained for hostage situations and suicide bombing.

This was a bad thing as the person could go to any extreme when cornered. His hands clenched onto the detonator firmly and his thumb moved close to the switch. His outstretched hand was a threat to the mother of the baby, but she was in no state of mind to realise this and kept running towards him.

I had to take action and I had to do it quick, but there was not enough time. His thumb was already on the trigger and his hand was trembling, perhaps to build conviction to press the button and accept his death. There was no way I would reach, unhand and overthrow him in such a short time, unless time stopped in its tracks for my sake. That was when I realised what I had to do.

My hand reached for the pin and promptly I spoke, "Dwara- udghataya."

Time slowed down to a stop, and the door split open. The woman running towards the bomber stood still and the tears falling down from her cheeks stopped mid-air. The bombers thumb got petrified and his trembling stopped. He stood there with a baby in his hands motionless. Now I had all the time in the world to take action.

Casually, I walked towards the scene to see what I can do to stop the detonation from taking place. On close review, I saw that the detonator had a small compartment for the batteries. I pried the detonator out of his hands and opened the battery compartment. There were two pencil size batteries inside it, which I took out and placed in the opposite direction. Then I put the detonator back in his hands.

Now I had to find a way to make the bomber lose his footing so as to avoid him from striking the woman. So I crouched down and untied the bombers shoelaces. I knotted all the four ends of the shoelaces firmly to one another to cause him to trip on his first move. Then I went to the baby who was dangling from the bombers other hand. The baby was wrapped in a thick cloth for warmth, but during the struggle which took place; its hands came out of the cloth.

If the baby was to fall now, there was a possibility for it to get hurt. So I took the baby out of his hands and wrapped it completely in the blanket tightly such that the cloth would be sufficient padding to break the fall.

Now all that was left was to knock the person unconscious to avoid him from struggling. So I took a clay brick which lay on the side of the footpath and placed it directly behind him. I approximated his height and placed the brick at a distance of his height plus another few inches to account for his back step.

Even if the brick did not hit his head it would still end up hurting him on his back hard enough to stop him from fighting for the next crucial few seconds. Once I was done with this I simply walked back to the place where I was waiting before and pulled closed the door by putting the key back into the light and turning it the other way. Surprisingly that worked. The vertical eye shaped door slowly closed and time regained its normal pace. The lady continued to run towards the man and he shouted at her, "Not one step further--."

She did not stop running. The man in his state of panic felt cornered so he closed his eyes and pressed the trigger. There was no explosion so the man opened his eyes and pressed a few more times. A slight feeling of relief spread across his face momentarily, which quickly returned to his panicked expression when he saw the mother still running towards him.

He realised that without the threat of the bomb he was helpless and decided to make a break for it. He stepped backwards hurriedly and the shoelaces that I had used to constrict his movements caused him to lose his equilibrium he tripped backwards, his head made an arc in the air curving towards the brick that I had placed on the road behind him.

My estimation was off by a few inches and the brick struck his medulla oblongata, but it still did its job equally well and knocked him unconscious. The baby that I had tucked into the cloth rolled away with the lightest impact and the mother made a beeline towards it. She picked the baby up and ran away from this place as quickly and as far away as possible.

The people who had hid themselves inside the temple complex on seeing the bomber incapacitated ran towards him and mob justice took over. I saw my plans work almost perfectly and smiled in satisfaction. So I decided to take my leave before the police round up witnesses.

Now I had realised when I do not think about where I wanted to go, the portal that the key opened would lead me to some place where I had to take action and stop some form of crime with my own capabilities. I wanted to go back home so I thought of using my new found knowledge of using the mystical door.

I walked towards a small narrow lane which was away from roving eyes. As I was entering inside the lane, I saw some movements inside a dark shadow on the far end of the lane.

A shady looking person walked out of the darkness and walked towards me. Knowing that this is not the safest places to be I kept an eye out for any danger, especially on the person walking towards me. I saw that he was wearing a hoodie with pockets in front. One of his hands was inside his pocket.

Straightaway I became aware of the possibility of a concealed weapon. So I prepared myself for a possible scuffle. The individual came close to me and just passed by, barely brushing past me. I heaved a sigh of relief as I no longer was in any danger. Just as I was feeling content with myself something happened which I was not expecting. The key dangling from the chain on my chest began to twitch rather sharply.

I took the chain out and suspended it freely. The key turned towards the person who walked by and locked on to him. I turned and watched him walk around the corner and saw the key turning with him, maintaining constant bearing towards him.

Although I did not understand the situation I could not leave it as it is. So I began to follow the person from a distance. He walked on the same road where I had come out from and walked towards the temple. After tucking the key back inside, I continued to walk behind him. When he reached close to the temple complex he stood at a distance and observed everything carefully. He looked as though he was analysing the entire situation especially he looked towards the bomber for a long time.

The police were rounding up witnesses and recording their statements in their notepads. The area had become crowded but I barely managed to keep my eyes on him. What happened next was completely unexpected. He took his hands out of his pockets. In his hands he held a key similar in shape and size to the key on my neck, but it appeared to be made of stone. It had a transparent black jewel at the back of it but it was not having any swirling liquid inside it.

Discreetly he pointed it at the bomber and mumbled something. The bomber who was in handcuffed inside the police jeep looked towards the person with the stone key. There was a slight reddish glow in his eyes which faded and he slouched as though he fell unconscious. The same blood reddish glow appeared inside the black transparent bulb in the back of the stone key.

That person examined the key and tucked it back inside his pockets. He began to walk away from the scene and towards me.

I pretended to look at the crime scene intently but the person might have recognised me from the dark lane where he passed by and walked briskly past me using the edge on his hoodie to cover his face.

I assumed that since this guy had a similar key, he might tell me more about the one I had, also about the beautiful girl. I had to take this once in a blue moon chance to find out more. I followed him to a place where we were alone to ask him about it, without worrying about anyone eavesdropping on us.

He walked back the same way. And paced towards the dark alley where I first bumped into him. Briskly, I walked closer to him until he was about 10 feet away from me. He turned into the lane to the right and I rushed closer. On reaching inside the lane I called out to him, "Hey! Can I have a minute?"

He turned around and had a confused expression but didn't say anything. He had a threatening air about him. Cautioned, I stayed where I was till I could be sure that he wouldn't harm me.

I said, "I have some questions."

He angrily replied, "Yeah? Well, bite me, asshole."

I took out the chain on my back and showed him the key on it and asked, "Do you know what this is?"

As soon as he saw the key around my neck, his expression changed completely. His once angry and arrogant expression was reduced to an expression of dread. He looked as though he had seen a ghost. I took a few steps closer to him and his fight or flight reflexes took over.

He ran towards me and punched me with the stone key in his hands. The impact of the punch was so strong that I was knocked through the air a few feet behind. Bewildered by this reaction of his I lay on the ground.

As I was trying to get back up he said, "You might have stopped that explosion but you won't stop this one."

He took a black glass marble out of his other pocket and squeezed it between his thumb and pointing finger.

A crack appeared on the marble and it shattered like an egg shell. Inside the shell of the marble was a glowing maroon orb. It was shiny and opaque. The orb began to make sizzling sounds and grew in size.

Finally, I managed to stand up straight and the orb had grown to the size of a basketball. The person in the hoodie saw me stand up and ran towards the dark shadow in the back of the alley.

He said, "Enjoy a painful death. Hail Azrail" and his entire body began to darken.

He changed to the same shade of black as the shadow and disappeared. The red orb's glow shone upon the corners of the alley and I realised he had truly vanished. Now the orb was the size of a small car and was translucent. It began to pulsate and slowly reduce in size as it gave out a shrill sound which increased in pitch rapidly. The person said something about an explosion when he threw the orb on the floor. My best guess was that this strange orb was a bomb of some kind. I had to get away from the bomb as soon as possible but I couldn't just leave it there.

Two buildings flanked the alley on either sides and if the bomb were to explode here, there would be countless casualties. The orb was now backing to the size of a marble and began to pulsate and vibrate furiously. I had only one course of action left.

With the key in my hand I rushed towards it and picked it up. Simultaneously I pointed the key forward and uttered, "Dwara udghataya," to open the door and jumped head first into the slit which opened. I thought in my head that I should go to a place the furthest away from any life form as I entered. The bright light of the door made my eyes shut while the red orb's temperature suddenly began to spike.

When I came out to the other side I threw the orb as far away from myself as possible. I fell on the ground hard and saw the orb glow brightly. A flash of light and heat permeated through my flesh and I felt excruciating pain radiate throughout my body. This was immediately followed by a deafening sound of explosion. I felt myself being tossed in the air for a few moments before I couldn't feel or sense anything anymore. My life drifted away as I watched and felt the cold numbness of death.