Order Of Makers!

You stop fearing the devil when you are holding his hand.

That’s what my uncle said when he was dying in my arms.

And that’s when this game started.

~

“-and yes, you have to solve this equation and derive it too!” The teacher closed her notebook, indicating this was all they will learn today. The excitement in students rising minute by minute before the bell-

Riing! Riing!

Children packed their bags and hurried out of the class while the teacher tried to calm them. The scene was no less than that of a shepherd controlling his bunch of sheep. And yes just like any other shepherd, the teachers were tired too, of this daily racket.

But there were few kids, in the far corner of the room, discussing something which was not supposed to.

“So Raj, after your uncle died, the system started for you, right?” a chubby boy asked a guy sitting in front of him.

“Yes…Aditya!” Raj said slamming his ninth standard mathematics book down on the wooden bench, making the bench shake.

“How many times have I told you, Aditya, not to discuss this!” screeched a girl, with her two long braids flying in the air, as a guy behind her tried to tease her, “Please stop Shoeb!”

Shreya’s eyes started to swell up.

Raj snatched Shoeb’s hand from her braids. “Stop”, Raj said in a serious voice. A deadly silence followed them.

Ping!

“See, you got a credit!” Shoeb exclaimed.

Raj shoved all his books into the bag. He was tired of this, utterly frustrated, too.

He never understood this ‘System’. The system was introduced by the government a few years back, to balance the world’s peace and war. If someone does a good deed, like, help someone if one needs it or stop someone doing something bad, they will get a credit, which will be added to their account generated by the government. If someone gets a thousand points, they will be rewarded by the government. There was only one person, who was able to do it in this many years, lots of cash rewards and luxurious items were given to him. This made people believe in this system more.

“Hey-” Shreya tapped on Raj’s shoulder, “Thank you, and can you please tell me what date is it today?”

“Uhh- 21st January 2050” Raj tried to recall. Shreya’s rosy cheeks blushed more, giving it a redder color, a smile gleaming on her face. Raj was confused now, so was Shoeb, they looked at each other.

“Tomorrow is your birthday!” Aditya's eyes filled with joy as he recalled what food he would get at the birthday party.

“Yes, you all are invited tomorrow, 7 at my house” Shreya said hastily, and rushed outside the classroom.

Shoeb nudged Raj’s ribs, “ouch!”

“She likes you!” Shoeb said, stressing more about every word. Raj ignored him, but he knows, how his insides were burning up with heat as butterflies roamed all over his body.

He went home that day and slept early. Being an orphan kid, life was not that easy and simple for him. It was just…boring.

He used to see other orphan kids having fun, but he never did. His only motive was to get out of here and get a nice job and stand up on his own feet.

It was just last night when someone asked him, why didn’t he focus more on getting credit points? That’s the easiest way to become a billionaire.

There were three things he always told them, first, he never believes in this system, second, he doesn’t like helping people just for the credit points, and third, he was just…frustrated.

He slept soundly on his cot even if it was made from the wood which was 50 years old, this was the only place other than school which relaxed him.

He closed his eyes, sleep taking over automatically and his whole body relaxing under the moonlight and hooting of the owl.

~

A man in his thirties was clasping a nine-year-old boy in his hands, as tightly as he could, not leaving him once.

“Where are we going? Uncle, please tell me, where are we going?” the little boy sobbed tremendously.

They turned towards a narrow alley just missing a bullet.

“Why are the police chasing us? What have you done?” the boy asked in fright.

All of a sudden the boy’s movements halted, he didn’t stop by himself, but because his uncle was not moving forward.

He looked up at his uncle. A bullet has directly hit his back. His uncle stumbled down, blood oozing from his mouth and his eyes rolling at the back of his head. The boy screamed at top of his lungs.

Ping!

 A sound resonated from the boy. He looked up at his head, in golden color there was the number zero, imprecated in the wolf’s mouth, it vanished after some time.

His uncle mumbled something and brought him near.

“I am sorry… Raj”  

~

Raj has prepared handmade roses from red paper which he learned through DIY hacks, he liked giving her everything made by him. He wore a suit with a red tie tucked neatly inside.

He was prepared for today, after yesterday’s night dream, he woke up with sweat, only to see he missed his alarm and thereafter bunking his school.

He was angry that he was not able to attend Shreya’s party in school, but he was looking forward to her birthday at her house, he was going to confess his love for her once and for all.

Ting tong!

Shreya came wearing a gown and a huge smile covered her face. Raj looked inside, Shoeb and Aditya were already present, and even her parents and her older brother.

She never had too many friends, she liked keeping her friends circle close. Raj gifted her the handmade roses and she blushed. Her parents welcomed them with lots of food. And her brother arranged everything in her room for their gameplay.

“Hey, I have an idea” said Shoeb enthusiastically, ‘Why don’t we have an adventure tonight, an adventure we all will remember”

Everybody listened keenly.

“Ok, so what we are going to do is pretty simple, we will go to the government legal system office-“

“Are you serious?” Aditya stood up, Frankie overflowing from his mouth.

“Shut up Aditya, listen to me, my father is in government, he has the keys and I brought them sneakily” he jingled the keys in his hands, everybody was in awe.

“Now then, we will go to the office, Aditya knows basic hacking right?” Aditya nodded with guilt.

“Then I will input the password, as I remember it very carefully, as my dad once told my mom. And then we will change our credit points to thousand for rewards”

“Stupid plan!” Raj said calmly.

“What?” Shoeb asked surprisingly, upset about how someone can ruin this perfect plan.

“First, what you are doing is a crime, secondly do you think no one did this before, they were put in jail, and third we don’t know how to enter this office”

“Raj” Shoeb took a huge pause, “you need to learn to enjoy your life man, and by the way, the solution of all your problems is my - dad”

“How?” Shreya asked him angrily.

“He is a government official, access to any device! And Raj think about it, with that money we can do anything”

Raj thought about it, if the money thing is real, he can run away from the orphanage and give Shreya a real bracelet, while confessing to her. He nodded his head.

“I am opting out of this” Aditya said while leaving the room

“Guys it’s my birthday, we don’t know what will happen, and I don’t want to ruin it” Shreya said clumsily.

Shoeb gasped, “Traitors. You all are no fun. Raj, you have to come please”

Raj looked at Shoeb first and then at Shreya and thought for a while. “Ok this mission is on”

~

“And yes that’s the canteen” Shoeb’s father showed through the window of a black SUV, which just entered a huge palace.

“And yes boys have fun, but don’t go far away, don’t want to get you into any trouble” He ruffled Shoeb’s hair.

Shoeb smirked at me.

After a bit of treasure hunting, finding the office was pretty much easy, and also hacking into it because of Shoeb’s ultra memory.

“Now what?” Raj asked, his gaze not leaving the computer screen at all, the wallpaper of the computer had a wolf’s picture on it. The same image that Raj saw on his head when his uncle died.

He tried to open many folders.

“They must have hidden the folder” Raj said while looking here and there for any human sign.

“ah-ha!’ Shoeb screamed and instantly clasped his hands over his mouth.

He opened a folder whose color was perfectly camouflaged with the background. There it was, the names of billions of people of the country with their credit points beside them.

Raj and Shoeb opened their folders only to find out the maximum credit points they were able to give themselves was 999, not a thousand.

“What the heck?” Shoeb yelled.

“Stop! We shouldn’t have come here! We should have never done this. This is a crime. A huge crime. Don’t do this Shoeb. It will only result in something worst next” Raj said in a fluent tone.

Shoeb understood the grievance of what he was doing. He looked at Raj and smiled and got up from the chair, only to exit the room with Raj-

Ping!

Shoeb looked at Raj’s head, a whole 1000 points in gold was shimmering and hovering over his head. Shoeb realized he was wrong. His friend has betrayed him. Raj was filled with joy, at last, he can leave.

Shoeb jumped on Raj and started to punch him, ‘you cheater, how dare you!”

The door suddenly busted open and in came the police, the government official, and a surprised Shoeb’s dad looking at the two kids.

After a few heated arguments. Shoeb was arrested and put to jail for his whole lifetime, for the crimes he committed, he neither looked at Raj nor his father.

Raj was taken to another room, where the head of the system department was seated. The man was in his late fifties, had a long mustache and a balding spot on his head which was quite prominent. The nameplate wrote in a bold letter that this office belonged to Mr. Rakesh Verma and the rest of the board was filled with his qualifications.

“Well, Raj, we currently can’t arrest you as you have scored a full thousand points”

Raj smirked. He was now expecting his rewards.

“Rewards?” Mr. Verma asked as if reading his thoughts, “oh yes, yes, that you will receive, but first have some tea!”

Mr. Verma went outside with his pack of cigars, probably to take a puff. Raj’s excitement was not holding him. He looked around the office, to find various photographs, but one photograph made his eyes stuck to it, it was the first man who won a thousand points in his lifetime. He squinted his eyes to get a clear picture of the person in the photo, but the sunlight was reflecting on it way too much.

Mr. Verma came inside again, this time closing the door behind him.

“well Mr. Raj, as you can see, the world needs some sort of balance, that’s why we made this system, where everything would be balanced, we can’t allow any side to go drastically up, as it would result in -" he moved his hands in jazz manner “-chaos”.

Mr. Verma opened his drawer and took out a gun. Raj stumbled back to open the door.

“Rewards? This is your reward, you are too good to live in this world Raj, Now that you have scored 1000 points, have fun in heaven, and see you in your next life. Because everything needs a…BALANCE” Mr. Verma smirked

Boom!

The bullet resonated and a pool of blood splattered on the perfect white tiles. Raj’s eyes adjusted to the light and darkness both at the same time, that’s the beauty of death, he thought. He looked at the photo again where the man stood with a trophy for his success in achieving 1000 points, his smile overflowing. Raj smiled too.

Because he has never seen his uncle smile like this before.