I was there.
Not as a hero, not as a prince, not as a name you’d find written in the shining scrolls of destiny. Just a soldier. Just Varun. Son of nobody, friend of Abhimanyu.
And that day, on the red plains of Kurukshetra, I followed him into the chakravyuh—the spinning, spiraling fortress of death.
Dr. Kira Rao wasn’t supposed to find it. She wasn’t even supposed to be in that database at 2 AM, sipping reheated coffee in the cold hum of her lab at the Institute of Molecular Evolution. But curiosity—mixed with boredom and caffeine—was stronger than sleep.
It began with a glitch.
For thirty years, The Kshira drifted at the silent edge of the solar system, near the Oort Cloud’s whisper. It was a colossal station once designed for colonization missions, now reduced to a tired hulk of recycled steel, worn plastic, and something more valuable—willpower.
They no longer used machines to fabricate tools or grow food. They used thought.
It started, as all great love stories do, in line for overpriced coffee at Comic Con.
Ishaan stood there, fidgeting with his con pass, glancing sideways at the woman next to him. Cargo pants, boots slightly scuffed, a subtle enamel pin of the One Ring on her canvas tote. Glasses slightly askew. Not cosplay, but dangerously close to I-know-more-lore-than-you energy.
“Long line,” he said, casual, like a normal person.
“Yeah,” she replied, squinting at the menu. “I’m only here for caffeine. And maybe mild existential dread.”
He chuckled. Okay. Good start.
The rain tapped against the windows like an old friend trying to be let in. Inside the small apartment—faded yellow walls, the smell of coconut oil and incense lingering in corners—Ananya sat cross-legged at the edge of her mother’s bed.
It was late. The kind of late where the world outside felt paused.
Her mother, Sushmita, was lying sideways, her soft cotton saree bunched around her waist, grey hair loose, her glasses slightly tilted. She had been listening for over an hour as Ananya spoke about college, work, books, and safe, proper things. Things daughters are supposed to share with their mothers.
Ananya wanted to be that daughter. She really did.
The moon hung crooked over the slums of Old City that night, like a broken coin stuck in the sky. Down below, in the web of narrow, trash-littered alleys, Kallu the cat was walking home from his usual midnight raid on the fishmonger’s leftovers.
That’s when he heard them—the soft, padded footfalls. Five sets. Surrounding him.
Long before pyramids touched skies or alphabets had letters, before humans wore shame or shoes, there lived two tribes along the edge of a great, green valley.
To the east, the Homo sapiens—the Thin Ones, fast with their feet, sharper with their flint tools, always chasing the sun. To the west, across the wide cold river, were the Neanderthals—the Heavy Ones, stocky, silent, with deep-set eyes like thoughtful bears and hands built for breaking bones.
They called each other “Others” in their guttural languages. Neither liked to go too close. The Thin Ones said the Heavy Ones would eat you. The Heavy Ones said the Thin Ones would steal your fire.
But then came Lua.
Every day, Meera took the same route from her flat in Ballygunge to her office near Esplanade. Same yellow taxis honking like rebellious ducks, same blaring of old tram bells stuck behind trucks that coughed like asthmatic elephants. Same chaos, like a giant orchestra where everyone forgot their instruments at home but showed up anyway.
But today, something was different.
Maybe it was the slightly softer rain last night. Maybe it was the way her favorite song played on loop in her earphones but her battery died halfway, leaving her suddenly alone with Kolkata—not the city on the news, but the one underneath all that noise.
Standing at the Golpark crossing, she noticed the Bougainvillea first.
It was Monday morning in Class 1B, and the sunbeam hitting the alphabet wall made everything feel dramatic—perfect for storytelling.
Five-year-old Aarav stood on the green reading rug, puffed out like a superhero about to reveal his secret identity.
“So... this weekend,” Aarav said, eyes wide, “I did something very dangerous. Like, more dangerous than swimming without floaties.”
His best friend Ria gasped. “More dangerous than touching Dad’s shaving foam?!”
“Mom. Dad. I had a dream. It was... horrifying.”
Eight-year-old Rohan stood at the foot of his parents’ bed, wide-eyed, hair ruffled like he’d fought through hyperspace turbulence. His parents, groggy and half-buried under a comforter, exchanged a look.
“Was it the one where we forgot to feed your Tamagotchi again?” Dad mumbled.
“No!” Rohan said, climbing into the bed like an urgent diplomat. “It started in deep space. I was commanding a rogue Federation scout ship—the S.S. Paperclip—running solo recon beyond the Orion arm. And then suddenly—I was under attack. Real bad. Like Episode V-level bad.”
Mom blinked. “Like Empire Strikes Back?”