'Puchi'

"Awoooooo" Shaggy howled as it felt unbearable pain for the second time in its life; both occurring on the very same day.

It immediately propped itself with its shivering legs, without even trying to remove the refill that was lodged in its right eye and ran away.

'Crash'

'Thud'

'Scree'

Shaggy collided with many objects, toppled a couple of decorative pots, smashed some expensive vases and finally exited the house.

It lost vision completely in its right eye and as for the left; it currently couldn't see much through it either. Its chances of recovering was a matter for the future. Currently, it could only rely on its auditory and olfactory senses.

The reason for its legs shivering was neither due to getting an eye punctured nor getting the other severely injured. Sure, living as a pet may have had considerably decreased its wild nature and also made it cowardly but this fear was for an entirely different reason.

Just before its right eye was pierced, it clearly saw him. The visage of its owner that was always kind to it except that one time when it entered the house and shat on the offering for an auspicious festival and almost hurt Akash.

As Prakash stood before Shaggy's right eye in a motion where he thrust the refill held in his hands, it could clearly see his angry face in close-up; a face seething with pure unadulterated rage. Reason flooded into its head and partially washed away its hunger.

Shaggy never wanted to set foot near the house ever again. But since the gates were closed shut, it could only roam around in the garden, trying to lick its wounds and cry out in pain.

"Huff….Puff" Prakash kept taking deep breaths as his racing heart didn't seem to slow down at all. He had wheatish skin complexion naturally, but his face currently looked like a bright red tomato that had fully ripened.

"Anita!" Prakash ran towards a cotton puff on which Anita lay motionless.

"Anita…?" As Prakash neared her, he saw the fingers on her left hand wriggle a little, motioning for him to stop.

As Prakash slowly inched closer towards her, Anita motioned for him to look at her left shoulder with her eyes, something they always did in situations where speaking with words were not possible, such as when they were in a client meeting.

Prakash gently placed his hands upon her left shoulder as he felt the structure of her bones, to see if there were any broken bones.

"Dislocated?" On Prakash's mutter, Anita confirmed through a motion of her eyes.

"Take a deep breath." Anita took a deep breath and closed her eyes as Prakash carefully placed his hands upon the shoulder region and on the socket connecting to her left hand and propped them in place in one quick motion.

"Gghh!" Anita grunted in pain when her left hand was propped back in place as veins bulged on her neck until they showed up on her face. Her forehead was laid with sweat as she took deep breaths, tears slightly forming in her eyes as she gazed at Prakash.

"Y-Your right hand is dislocated too?" Prakash's eyes became red and his voice choked as he joined Anita's right hand into the socket in practiced swiftness and gently massaged her shoulders, in an effort to reduce her pain.

Sometime later, Anita slowly sat up with the help of Prakash, placed her hands upon her chest and applied some pressure.

'Splurt'

Anita coughed out some reddish blood from her mouth and could finally begin to speak.

'Cough' 'Cough'

"Rest for a little while, you're injured," Prakash anxiously responded as he tried to prevent her from standing up.

"None of my bones are broken and I feel fine," Anita said with a coarse voice as she tried to support her body with her right hand and get up but failed to do so when her hands clearly hadn't recovered their strength in such a short time frame. Prakash hurriedly supported her as she stood up and tried to inspect her injuries.

"I'm fine. Akash could be in danger now." Anita said as she let go of Prakash's hold on her, walked a few steps forward and stumbled as her legs gave out under her.

Prakash immediately caught her before she could fall down and carried her in a princess carry. Tears were streaming down his face as he couldn't bear to see his wife get hurt so badly.

"Rest a little. I'll take you to our son." Prakash assured her as he began to walk towards a beaten up door when a loud sound went off.

Startled, both the husband and wife duo gazed towards the source of the sound only to find out the culprit to be their wall clock.

After every hour, when the minute hand strikes twelve, the wall clock chimes as many times depending on the hour displayed on the clock. If the time was 2:00 PM, the clock would chime twice, if the time was 8 AM, it would chime 8 times (It was a 12-hour clock).

The clock chimes were a total of 6 now, implying that it was 6:00 PM in the evening. They finished their lunch by 2:30 PM; something happened after that that made them small now, it was a supernatural feat beyond their comprehension.

"Dear?" Anita called out, with confusion plastered on her face.

"Yes," Prakash replied. He too felt a sudden sense of disorientation.

"I'm not hearing things right?"

"I-I seem to hear it in the same way too!"

They felt their senses to be disorienting because their minds couldn't comprehend the scene that was transpiring before them. It felt shocking and somewhat scary on a magnitude that was far greater than what they felt when they found themselves as shrunk little munchkins.

The 6 bell chimes from the wall clock felt as if they had lasted for 10 times longer than they should originally have. And moreover, each tick of the wall clock felt way slower as compared to usual.

That wasn't all. As an experiment, Prakash threw a small piece of leather near him into the air and observed the same phenomenon. It felt like their hand movements, the ascent and descent of the piece of leather had all become slower. No, it felt like a change was fundamentally occurring within them in real-time.

THEIR PERCEPTION OF TIME WAS CHANGING!

This change in perception also seemed to subtly influence their memories and thought processes.
When Prakash recalled the client meeting he had just attended, it felt like a long time had passed since then, way more than necessary. The meeting held two days ago felt as if it was an event in his memory that happened a few weeks back.

His head started to spin and he felt his vision go blur. Prakash hurriedly placed Anita on the ground when he immediately fell beside her and fainted. Anita shortly fainted after him too.

It was wintertime in their city; the sun was currently setting and would have completely set after a couple dozen minutes.

There was a faint purple radiance congregating upon the bodies of Prakash and Anita as their bodies twitched occasionally.

6:30 PM…

The sun had completely set by now and their house was filled with ambient darkness. The husband and wife duo simultaneously woke up with a groan as they blinked a few times and gathered their bearings.

There was a faint moonlight that was seeping through the open windows and door of the living room which gave them a faint vision. They could make out the silhouettes of each other and also vaguely identify the faraway objects in the living room.

They nodded towards each other as they slowly walked towards a certain direction of the living room as Prakash piggybacked Anita.

Sometime later, Prakash stretched his hands and used his body weight and finally flipped a switch. Well, it wasn't a switch per see, but just him pressing the power button of their TV remote in a dramatic fashion.

The TV switched ON and a blue screen flickered on it. There was no audio, no video, just a blue screen. It didn't bother them much; all they wanted was a source of light.

The blue light that illuminated from the TV screen filled the entire living room. Sure, their visions weren't as clear as during the day but it would suffice.

"Your hair!" The duo simultaneously exclaimed at each other as they could finally see each other clearly after their vision was restored.

Anita touched her long smooth hair that was now completely white; Even the hair that grew on her eyebrows and eyelids had also turned white.

"One second," Prakash excused himself as he turned around and checked his pubic regions.

"Not here,"

"Not here either,"

"It's here but it's white."

Prakash retold his findings to Anita. It seemed as if he no longer had any hair in his pubic regions. In his armpits and in his groin, they seemed to have mysteriously vanished. The hair on his chest had also lessened to a considerable degree but was now white. The fine hair that grew all along his skin was white too. It seemed to be the same as in the case of Anita except for a lack of chest hair on her part since women never had any there after all. Sadly, the new changes didn't seem to change their status quo.

"We'll deal with it later. Akash is our number one priority." Anita said as she began to walk towards the door leading into the room where Akash had been sleeping in the afternoon.

It seemed strange that she could already move her body as she used to and could also gather a significant amount of strength in her hands in such a short span of time; but after everything that had transpired till now, this was the least of her concerns. The safety of her child was more important.

Prakash ran towards another location and returned with two refills as he walked alongside Anita.

"I'll carry them." Anita nodded to his care and increased her pace. Her mind completely occupied with the sole thought of her child's safety.

The couple reached the beaten up door while skipping past many splinters of wood and began to push at it.

"Aaargh!" The couple bellowed like two ancient war generals as they pushed open the door that had already been unlocked by Shaggy. The opened space was too thin for them so they needed to widen it further.

'Creak'

The couple passed through the narrow crack that had opened up after significant effort by squeezing their bodies through it and entered into the room only to find….. a horde of carcasses.