Week 5 Story: The Rakshasa that wept

Complete devastation. Everywhere. Dead bodies of villagers were laid across the entire countryside. Fires were raging on several huts and in fields spread out. The few survivors that remained tried to hide under or behind whatever they could find, praying and hoping that the deadly rakshasa was gone and wouldn't come back. 

But Ravana wasn't done.

Ravana reappeared and searched for anybody he could find. He flipped over debris after debris from the destruction that he had caused earlier, and killed everybody he found on site. Body after body, Ravana didn't care. When found, most villagers didn't even try to run because they knew it was pointless. 

Ravana thinks he has killed all of the villagers until he hears a baby crying. He rushes over to the sounds of the crying to find a mother holding her baby. Ravana grabs the baby from the mother's arms and tosses it to the ground. He then takes the mother, snaps her in half and throws her limp body into the nearby river. Ravana approaches the baby on the ground where he left it, face down. He turns the baby over, but he suddenly stops.

As Ravana looks into the baby's eyes, it's as if he's trapped in time with no escape. In the eyes of the baby is the story of something very dark and sinister. It is Ravana's story, from beginning to now. All of the deaths, all of the disaster, all of the pain. All caused by Ravana. 

Ravana falls to the ground after snapping out of stranglehold of the baby's powers. He doesn't understand how he feels this way. He is a rakshasa, He isn't supposed feel bad about any of his actions. He thought his purpose was to destroy. Ravana begins to cry.

Suddenly, a very strong beam of light comes down from the sky. It is one of the gods. In Ravana's depressing state, he is too distracted to know what is happening. The god calls Ravana's name and begins to explain what is occurring. While the gods typically don't wish to intervene in many of the mortals' problems, they felt they had to do something. Ravana was wiping out people at an alarming rate. There seemed to be no purpose to his destruction. The gods decided to place a baby with eyes that can show a person's story in a village that was in Ravana's wrecking path.

It was a longshot, but what the gods hoped would happen, happened. Even a rakshasa can see the error in his ways.

                                               (Ravana before his demise. Link)

Author's note: I've always been interested in Rakshasas and Rakshasis, so I decided to do a story about one, but I also wanted to throw a twist in there, They are always thought to be very vicious, so I thought it would be cool to add a new concept.

Bibliography: Ramayana Online Public Domain Edition Link