Durgamasura and the Avatars

X-Isha- We were literally almost eaten by a snake. A little sympathy please?

We suddenly found ourselves on dry grass. I was so nauseous, that I promptly threw up. Karnya and Nilan looked no better. In front of us, a river raged. It wasn't filled with water, because the liquid was red. I hoped it wasn't blood. "Wh-What's the river filled with?" I asked, "Because it definitely is not water." Nilan looked worried and said, "The blood of evil people." 

 Aaand I was unfortunately correct. I gagged. "Yuck! How can we cross a river like that?" I exclaimed, "The current will sweep us all away." Nilan was only half listening, and staggered up to the bank. He called, "Make way for us, O River Vaitarna, for I, Yamaraja have returned." Dead silence. Karnya said, "You seriously think-"

but was stopped short by the river splitting in two, leaving us wet sand to walk on. Karnya gulped and said, "I stand corrected." Nilan stepped onto the riverbed, and his shoes squished in the sand. He grunted and said, "Looks okay." We carefully went through the river. When we came out on the other side, I saw two black gates and behind them, double doors. Nilan turned around and said, "Thank you." The water (blood, ew) immediately dropped, and the river started raging as it was before.

We turned around and stared at the gates. "Do you think that they're locked?" Karnya whispered. Even though no one except us were there, we felt the need to whisper. The place felt oppressive and dangerous. Nilan pushed the gates, and they opened with creaks. Then were the doors themselves. Huge and black, as if made out of iron of terror (That was poetic. How did I not score good marks in poetry criticism? Anyway).

There were two dogs, and one of them snarled and said, "Looks like you found the perfect place to die." I froze. I think my heart skipped a beat. Then, the dog started jumping around and said, "Was that menacing enough master? I know that before you left to walk the mortal world, you instructed me to be more menacing!" he said. And then, he started laughing like a maniac.

 Nilan looked mystified, but he just played along, probably because of their fangs. And claws. "Yeah... that was perfect..." he said. "WHAT'S HIS NAME!!???" He was screaming through our link. There was a name tag on his collar which said, Do. "HIS NAME IS DO. IT'S THERE ON HIS NAME TAG. " I said. "That was perfect Do." "You're a fool Do." the other dog grumbled. "It's just silly. The people are already dead. You should say something like, "You found the perfect place to be tortured."" "Yeah.... Listen to him, Do..."

 Nilan agreed. He coughed and said, "Open the doors to the kingdom of Death, please." "Of course master! We are doing our duty!" the other dog said. Do laughed again, and said, "Hey, you know that doo-tee also means belly-button in Gujarati?" Unfortunately, now I do. I thought. "No we didn't. But please open the doors." Nilan said. 

The doors silently opened, and beyond them, loomed darkness. We took deep breaths and entered the Kingdom of Death. "We've come to the Kingdom of Death, so now what do we do?" Karnya asked. "Beware the past..." I muttered. In front of us, there was a sign, which said, Room of Judgement, Left; Room of the Past, Right; Room of Reincarnation, In front. "Room of the Past?" I asked. "Definitely. This is quite easy." said Nilan. We went in the direction the room was, and we found a locked iron door. "Great. Now where's the key?" 

There were clumps of bushes and we dug our hands through the bushes and I found an iron key, matching the door. "Look!" I said. "Perfect." Nilan exclaimed. I unlocked the door, and it opened silently. We forged on, but then, the ground seemed to disappear, and we fell. We landed on grass. It seemed dry, like it was on the banks of Vaitarna. I got up and a huge cave loomed in front of us. It was strange, the walls of the cave weren't brown or grey, but red. "Where are we?" I asked. "Not sure." Nilan said. "Maybe Aranya is in the cave?" 

I suggested. We went inside the cave, and I noticed that the ground was weird. It was straight at the back, but it branched out at the front. With sickening dread, I realized where we were. Before I could say, "Hey guys..." We began to move. When I looked through the mouth of the cave, I saw that the cave was floating. I grabbed Nilan and Karnya's hands and jumped out. When I turned back, I saw that, a python was looming above us. 

"Who are you?" I shouted, but he seemed more interested in Karnya, as if she was a rat. "Well.... Looks like we have some children here." he said. The 'children' comment stung. We were eleven! We were tweens, not children. "I am Agha, the python." the snake said. I knew Nilan wanted to shout, "I don't care!" Suddenly I remembered the story. When Lord Krishna was a child, he and his friends had wandered into a cave a.k.a Agha's mouth. Krishna was Lord Vishnu, which meant....oh gods. "KARNYA RUN" I said through the mind link. 

"NO! THE PEARL IS IN HIS MOUTH! THE ONLY WAY TO GET IT IS TO......" I realized I realized what she was saying. I sent a mind message to Nilan and Karnya with my plan. Karnya started running around and started shouting insults at the snake. He tried to snap her up with his jaws, but Nilan and I jumped in instead. We immediately got into formation. Nilan formed a protective shield around us, so that the snake couldn't close its jaws. I ran around, looking for the pearl when Karnya jumped in too! "What are you doing?" I asked. 

"Helping you." she replied, simply. I smiled. I formed a human pyramid with Nilan while Karnya ran around searching for the pearl. "I found it!" Karnya said, showing the third pearl. "Perfect. Now we need to jump out." Karnya shook her head. "We can't. He'll just tire us and then kill us. We need to kill him. I'll sacrifice myself so you two can carry on safely." 

She just threw it out there so casually, that it took me a sec to realize what she was saying. "No.... you can't.." Tears formed in my eyes. "I have to... He only is troubling us because of me." she said. "If you kill yourself, he'll kill us too." Karnya gave us a faint smile, and slid down his slimy throat. There was a hacking noise, which I realized to be Agha coughing (Can snakes cough?) We ran out while his mouth was open 

(Since he did not have the proper etiquette to try and shut his mouth), and jumped down. Then suddenly, he exploded, and snake slime fell on us. I realized we didn't have the pearl. "Oh shit.." I muttered. "What," Nilan asked, "happened?" "We don't have the pearl!" I groaned. Then suddenly, Karnya appeared, holding the pearl. Slime all over her, and gross, but alive. "Dude!" I yelled happily and hugged her. "You know what? Let's not hug too much now, considering that we all are covered with snake slime." 

"Agreed." Nilan said. There was a door in front of us. No lock this time. That was weird. "There better not be any giant snakes behind..." Karnya muttered. Luckily there was no giant snake behind the door. In fact, there was a room, with thousands of TV screens glowing. On the floor, Aranya lay shivering. We ran to her and tried to wake her up. Then we sprinkled some water, but nothing happened. "What do we do?" I asked, "We have only 3 days left." "Should we scare her awake?" Nilan asked, "I mean, every time I get a nightmare, I wake up." "Good point," Karnya said, "but how do we do that?" I snapped my fingers and said, "I have one." I bent down and whispered in her ear, 

"I am sorry but you got only 99.9 percent in Math." She started tossing and turning (and moaning. It's complete torture for her to have anything less than 100 percent in math). 99.8 percent. 99.7 percent." Then she yelled "No!" And woke up. She had a wild look in her eyes, and suddenly a dagger appeared in her hands. She pointed it at us, and started shrieking. We stepped back, and she calmed down. "Where the hell did she get that?" Nilan asked. 

The dagger seemed to be made out of pure energy, like wisps of light. She pointed it at each of us. "Hey do you think that we could.. I dunno, put her back to sleep?" Nilan began singing, "Hushaby baby...." "I mean using your stick!" Karnya snarled. "It's a death stick. Not meant for sleep. Unless you want a permanent sleep." "No, we want a permanent sleep for our best friend. USE YOUR DAMN HEAD!" said Karnya sarcastically. She added, "The deathstick is the Elder Wand. Have you even read the last Harry Potter book?" Perfect. Now we're onto Harry Potter Trivia.

"Umm guys, we are getting a bit off track here. And Nilan, just try using your stick." I pleaded. He waved his stick like a giant wand, and Aranya collapsed. I wasn't sure if she was alive. I put my ear next to her mouth, and heard.... nothing. She wasn't breathing. "You... killed her.." I whispered. "He shook his head and said, "No." It didn't sound like the 'disbelieving no'. It sounded like the confident one. Then suddenly there was a snort, and Aranya murmured in her sleep, "I want brownies." 

"See?! She's perfectly fine. So, how do we use the pearls?" Nilan asked. Karnya took out the pearls and put them in a line. Then, the room began to shake, and we found ourselves on an island. Then suddenly, a man appeared in front of us. He was wearing the saffron robes of a sage, and, said, looking at Aranya, "Oh dear. Looks like she's cursed. I doubt there's much chance of her living."