The MythMaker.
The cog wheels shifted a bit, then, they moved. They ground into each other and the room echoed with the life of the ancient machinery. Aanya was curious, to say the least. She was a hyperactive kid whose mind never stopped churning out questions about the world around her. Wreckages and buildings in ruins always fascinated her. She always felt that one day, she would unearth an ancient artefact from one of the stories her mother told her as the sun hid behind the mountains. So far, her crusades were in vain but this time she knew she was onto something. As she stepped into this old structure with weird inscriptions all over the doorway, she heard the sound of machinery springing to life.
He had forgotten the last time the wheels of fate were set in motion. All he remembered was exploring the cosmos in his astral projection when he felt the wheels slowing down and eventually stopping, one by one. By the time he could figure what was happening, his own core processor had shut down. And now, after god knows how many years, the wheels have started to turn again. A cosmic event has been set in motion.
As Aanya moved as though the labyrinthine corridors, she listened to the sound of the machinery, navigating through the ruined paths. As she went deeper into the structure, she realized that this was a citadel of some sort, carved into a mountain, with the ceiling at a height of almost 500 ft. As the sound of the machinery grew louder, she broke into a sprint, fear, curiosity and excitement gripped her, her heart racing but still she raced on, without missing a step.
As he slowly opened his eyes and rebooted his core, his sensors picked up a heat signature inside the sanctum. As he tuned in a bit more, he saw that it was a human and the human was running straight towards him. He had forgotten the last time someone had entered his sanctum. But he did remember his last prophecy. The end of a Yuga; the war to end all wars. As images of five warriors and an immortal walking in through the doorway flashed in his memory, he realised that the human had now entered the inner sanctum. He prepared himself for his first contact with humankind in many millennia.
As she reached a large chamber where she could see the machinery from which the sound emanated, she realized that the structure wasn’t just a citadel. She realized that it was a temple. A huge staircase blocked her view but she could see the top of what she assumed was the deity. Her mother had told her about temples, ancient structures on top of energy wells that were turned into places of worship where the early humans worshipped their gods. “The early humans thought that these areas had great amounts of energy because of God’s presence but little did they know about the wells of Pralaya energy that lay beneath their feet.”
Aanya could hear her mom as she raced up the temple stairs. As she climbed the final step, she knew that she had stumbled upon something massive because in front of her was the biggest automaton she had ever seen in her life. As she stared at the massive figure, speechless, the automaton spoke and the whole temple trembled.
He was expecting a warrior, someone fit to carry out fate’s plan. But this was a child, a girl child. But now he must fulfil his duty to the immortals. So he spoke. “I am Markandeya. And you, my child, are going to bring an end to the Kali Yuga.” “Wow! First of all, you have the most human voice of all the automatons I have ever come across. And second of all, you should update your system. You are talking about the end of the Kali Yuga when the world ended 18 years ago.”
Aaaaaaand cut.
-Sree Hari